


Living Arrangements

by relenafanel



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Misunderstandings, New York City, Romantic Comedy, Snark, Unwilling Roommates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-22
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2017-12-12 16:26:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/813605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/relenafanel/pseuds/relenafanel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles arrives in New York City and immediately figures out that he is the very definition of a wide-eyed, gullible college student 'right off the boat' when it turns out his apartment was a con.  He doesn't really have anywhere to live or the spare money to get a hotel room.  Luckily (or unluckily) his dad and Talia Hale are friends and her son Derek lives in Manhattan.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>Meet Stiles Stilinski: College Student, Architect, Surprisingly Gullible (it was <b>one time</b>, ok?), Asshole, About to fall in love.</i></p><p> </p><p>  <i> Meet Derek Hale (an Ode by Stiles): He’s an asshole</i><br/><i>And kind of creepy</i><br/><i>And hot like the sun</i><br/><i>And has his own apartment that Stiles totally wishes he didn’t have to share… Though sometimes partial nudity, so that’s a plus.</i><br/> <br/>It turns out they might be rather perfect for each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Life with Derek:Welcome to New York City, you schmuck

**Author's Note:**

> This story is for [Maichan808](http://maichan808.tumblr.com/) for the AO3 Fundraising Auction. She won a 5,000+ word fic and we both agreed that an unwilling roommates fic would be awesome!
> 
> Well, 6,000 words later and I've finished the first chapter of what looks to be my newest WIP.
> 
> And it is _awesome_!

# Prologue: Three Phone Calls

 

**_Call #1 – Stiles calls his father, the Sheriff_ **

 

“Dad, it was a scam.”

 

“Your scholarship?”

 

“No, that’s fine.  I just don’t have...”

 

“So you were scamming them? You’re not actually attending university?  Are you in New York to explore your previously unrealized passion for performing in musical theatre?  Oh! I know, are you trying out for the Mets?”

 

“This is serious,” Stiles started, and then paused.  “Wait... you can’t really just try out for the Mets.  That’s not how baseball... don’t derail me. My lease isn’t real - the landlord I signed papers with and wrote a check to for First and Last skipped out with my money.  I’m at the police station now, but it turns out there are about four of us so far who rented out the same apartment.”

 

“That’s too bad, son.”

 

Stiles could hear his father almost laughing over the phone, and Stiles suspected it was because when his dad had skeptically said ‘this all seems overly easy’ Stiles had assured him that it was fine.  He may have used the phrase: ‘come on, dad, I’m the son of a Sheriff, it’s difficult to get things past my keen bullshit meter.’

 

So yes, laugh it up old man.  You were right about something, and it definitely was not those pants you wore to the End of Summer town picnic.

 

“How much did you lose?” his dad asked, cutting straight to the point.

 

“A little over two thousand.”

 

His father hummed thoughtfully.  “What’s your course of action?”

 

“I guess I’ll find a hotel,” he said, kicking at the leg of the desk in front of him, half worried it would topple over immediately.  

 

“Staying at a hotel will put it up to about three thousand, minimum, if you don’t find something by the weekend.”

 

“I will.”  He basically had to find another apartment, even if that wasn’t a lot of time.

 

His dad sighed.  “Stiles, just let me...”

 

“No!”

 

“You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”

 

“Don’t call Mrs. Hale, dad.  I don’t care if her son has an apartment in Manhattan - I don’t want to live on Derek Hale’s shitty futon in whatever roach motel he can afford as a sports coach or whatever really fascinating job field he entered on his pea-sized jock mentality.”

 

“I’m calling Mrs. Hale,” the Sheriff decided in his most Sheriff-y tone of voice.  “And don’t give Derek a hard time.”

 

“I don’t think that’s a... oh crap, look, I got to go.  They just brought the sketch artist in.  Don’t call Mrs. Hale! I don’t care how great she seems during city council meetings when she makes fun of the mayor’s toupee with you.”

 

“I’ll text you the details.”

 

“No! Dad!”

 

It said a lot about Stiles as a person that he was more upset over the fact that his dad wanted him to live with one of his friend’s sons than he was about the fact he’d gotten conned.  

 

x.x.x.x.x.

 

**_Call #2 – The Sheriff calls his friend, Mrs. Hale_ **

 

“Talia, John here.  My son just landed in Manhattan and his living arrangements fell through.  I thought, who do I know who can help...”

 

She laughed.  “I’ll call Derek, he’ll be happy to put Stiles up for a while.  He’s paying premium prices for a two bedroom just because he likes the gym on the ground floor.  If he’s going to have the room, he has to put up with the occasional visitor.”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“It won’t be a problem.”

 

x.x.x.x.x.

 

**_Call #3 – Mrs. Hale calls her son, Derek ‘no’ Hale_ **

 

“No,” Derek answered.

 

“You have a spare bedroom.”

 

“It’s an office.”

 

“Laura told you to put a bed in it.”

 

“Yeah, so she could visit more often and not have to sleep on the couch.  It was a high priority, let me tell you.”  The fact he was rolling his eyes was evident over the phone.

 

“So help me... I don’t know how I raised such selfish children.  This is one of your kin in need.”

 

“Kin? I wouldn’t even do this for a cousin. It’s just some dumb kid from my hometown.  I’ve never even met him.”

 

“He and his father were at our Christmas party last year.”

 

“I wasn’t home for Christmas,” Derek reminded her.

 

“Well, you remember the Sheriff.”

 

“Old Bartholomew? Yeah, didn’t know he had a kid.”

 

“Sheriff Stilinski.”

 

“I don’t keep up with Beacon Hill news, mom.  And it’s not like I’ve ever been in trouble with the law.  Wait... you mean Deputy Stilinski?  He gave my class a lecture on safe driving right before graduation.  His kid’s like 13 years old!  What’s he doing in Manhattan on his own?”

 

“You graduated a decade ago, Derek.  Don’t be deliberately obtuse.”

 

“My point is, _mother,_ I don’t want to open my apartment up to some kind of immature partying freshman just out on his own for the first time.”

 

“You graduated a decade ago!” She reminded him with exasperation.  “I thought you were good at math.  Never mind, you’ll see.  Pick him up in the lobby of Columbia’s Architecture building after work. He’ll be waiting.”

 

“Mom!  Don’t do this to... fuck.”

 

Dial tone.

 

 

# Part One: Life with Derek

 

“So basically it was a Harlem Shake-down,” Scott suggested with barely veiled laughter over the phone.  

 

“I wasn’t actually held at gun point,” Stiles reminded him.  “It was white collar if anything, because these guys were good.  They brought me into the landlord’s rental office to sign stuff and everything.”

 

“They’d have to be to get one over on you,” Scott suggested, outright laughing.

 

“That’s not funny,” Stiles said, scowling across the expanse of the architect building lounge area.  He bounced his leg over the side of the arm of the leather chair he was sitting in, wondering about the logistics of spending the night on campus.  Surely people had already tried that and security knew more about places to watch out for than Stiles did on his first day.  “The city might never sleep, but I’m going to have to.  It’s a thing humans do.  Do you know what this does to my apartment budget?  It drops it.  Way down.  Significantly down.  Below the balls, verging on eating out of the ass _down_ , Scott.”

 

“I told you to stop using blow jobs as a metaphor that time you suggested that we go stand as precome on the top of the Space Needle.  You’re going to be an architect!  It’s weird.”

 

“We all need our coping mechanisms,” Stiles answered sardonically as the woman sitting across from him got up and left with a look towards him of pure judgement.  “I’ll have you know that it’s actually a very common metaphor among architects – you want weird?  Try sitting through a lecture about your favourite architect and listen to his vision about the majestic rod-iron rising out of a thicket of oak trees, strong and robust with enough malleability to give into the blowing wind.  Architecture is phallic, there’s no getting away from it.”

 

“It makes so much more sense now,” Scott mused.  “At first I thought you were in it because it allowed you to be creative and mathematical.  Then I thought you had a passion for it.  Now I know you’re just in it for your dick.”

 

“Well, pssshtyeah,” Stiles said.  “Are you telling me that you’re becoming a doctor to help people?  Please, I know it’s the hot nurses.”

 

“Stiles!” Scott yelped.  “Eww, my mom’s a nurse, you know my mom’s a nurse!  This is worse than that t-shirt from high school.”

 

“I support single moms,” Stiles remembered in an amused tone.

 

“ _I SUPPORT SINGLE MOMS_!” Scott echoed back, his outrage obvious over the phone.

 

“Besides, you know I didn’t buy it about your mom.  It was to wear to supper that time dad brought Candy and her three brats over for lasagna because of his weird five-date-meet-the-family rule.”

 

“Her name was Cynthia.”

 

“She had three kids!”

 

“She worked at the bank.  She still works at the bank.  Implying she was a stripper was probably the reason they didn’t make it to date six.”

 

“I know, genius, right?  Can you see me with three step-brats?”

 

Scott was silent for a moment.  “I really can’t.  Your poor dad.  You’re enough.”

 

“Aww, thanks buddy!” Stiles said, grinning into his phone.  Sometimes Scott really got him.  “You know, the chairs here are ok.  I might be able to sleep in one if that guy never shows up.”

 

“How’s campus?”

 

“The building is fantastic! There’s something fitting about getting a degree in Historic Preservation in a building that has been historically preserved.  And... oh my god, Scott, I think the people who go to school here might be _beautiful people_ because I swear the most gorgeous guy just walked in.”  Stiles’s eyes tracked the man as he hooked his sunglasses into the breast pocket of his suit and slowly looked around the atrium of the building. “Maybe he has a couch I can stay on. Or even in his bed, because hot damn this guy is super hot and...” and his gaze landed on Stiles, pausing for a second before he moved forward. “Oh my god, Scott, he’s heading this way _I-got-to-go-talk-to-you-later-bye_.”

 

Rarely did the hot guy ever single Stiles out.  Usually, Stiles was the one who was drawn to people so far out of his league that they may as well be the Kraken.  It dawned on Stiles then that maybe this guy wasn’t a peer, maybe he was a professor who just wanted to welcome Stiles to the school (or lecture him about his luggage taking up so much space).  That would be just his luck, Stiles considered, but par to the course for Stiles’ habit of falling for the one unattainable person in the room.  He’d promised himself he wouldn’t do that anymore.  Hell, he’d promised Scott he wouldn’t do that anymore.

 

As if, somehow, promises to Scott carried more weight.

 

Though he had promised Scott he’d never wear the Single Moms shirt again, and he hadn’t.

 

Around Scott.  And maybe also because his dad threw it in the barbeque before his next date.

 

The possible professor, but definitely a professional (maybe, if Stiles was lucky, he’d be an alumnus), was now standing over him, staring down at Stiles with some kind of expectation written all over his expression.   It was all in the eyebrows, climbing the guy’s forehead like the King Kong up the Empire State Building.  Stiles took a moment to subtly look around to make sure the luggage at his feet wasn’t blocking the guy’s way, because this was starting to get a little strange.

 

“Well?” the guy prompted.  “I don’t have all day.”

 

Stiles squinted up at him, because what the heck was the guy talking about, looking at Stiles like he anticipated Stiles knowing something?  Stiles knew nothing!  Stiles didn’t even know how to select an apartment without being conned out of a few thousand dollars!

 

Stiles’ stomach sank to the point where it rolled over like a capsizing boat, the swells making him nauseated because _of course_.  Of course this would happen.

 

Of course.

 

Fuck.

 

“Derek, right?” he asked with crushing disappointment, because not only did this incredibly attractive guy not approach Stiles out of any sort of deliberation caused by actively choosing Stiles (maybe because _say_ he thought Stiles attractive), but because this incredibly attractive guy was actually about to take Stiles home with him.  It was not a dream coming true; it was a nightmare.  “Of course you’re Derek.  You’ve got the same –“ Stiles gestured to his face.  “—as all the Hales.”

 

Damn, those Hales.  They made the curve of attractive exports from Beacon Hills so unreasonably high that Scott couldn’t even rank, let alone Stiles.

 

Derek stared at him for a moment, turned and walked away now that names had been established.  Stiles assumed he was leading the way back to his car, but Stiles couldn’t be sure that Derek wasn’t just leaving him there.  Full stop.  

 

Stiles struggled with his three bags as he scrambled after Derek’s retreating back, scowling at the fact that Derek hadn’t even offered to help.  It wasn’t that Stiles needed help or even wanted it, he was a firm believer in being able to do things himself and stubbornly only brought as many bags as he could carry (a rule which had served him pretty decently now that he was homeless and wandering the streets of New York City with his luggage) but it was a politeness thing.  If Derek was that much of an asshole already, it certainly did not bode well for the next week (but hopefully less) that Stiles would be living with him.  Stiles had to take a moment to pause on the pathway between the Architecture building and the campus chapel next to it, puffing as he readjusted the weight of his large duffle back over his shoulder.  The next few steps took him right off the quiet hallowed pathways of the campus and right onto the sidewalk of Amsterdam Ave.

 

If he had been kind of smug about his ability to navigate with his luggage, that was only before he was trying to navigate on a sidewalk with people.  He’d read a lot of ‘what to expect in NYC’ blogs, and the whole ‘everyone is an angry asshole’ cliché had been debunked, but Stiles assumed that was within the parameters of not rolling over someone’s foot with about a hundred pounds of luggage.

 

Because it seemed to Stiles that New Yorkers were huge jerks who kicked a guy's luggage over as said guy was trying to drag it down the street.  This day was kind of the worst.

 

There was someone living under the nearby overpass created for students to walk across.  Stiles could see the sleeping bag sticking out from beneath the pillars, and he realized that he had all this stuff but no sleeping bag.  He was so ill prepared for being homeless it wasn’t even funny.  Who cared if Derek Hale seemed to be trying to get away from him? Stiles decided, mentally asserting his newfound stance on the matter (his stance of not living under a tunnel right outside of his campus, despite the convenience of the location).  Stiles would likely not survive any kind of ordeal that didn’t have a shower and access to a toilet without limitations, and he hurried after the retreating ass, quickly gaining ground on him.

 

Yes, him, because ass stood for asshole in this scenario.

 

Though, objectively… Derek Hale’s was mighty fine.

 

Because Stiles had decided from that one short impression that that’s what Derek Hale was.  An asshole.

 

The kind of asshole who drove a really sweet Camaro in a city known for personal vehicles being an unnecessary and expensive expenditure.

 

Great, if Derek Hale spent more on his car than on his apartment, Stiles was going to sleep in the back seat.  “It’s a nice car,” Stiles said awkwardly after his bags had been stowed in the trunk and he was settled into the nice leather interior, the leather seats hot from the midday sun.

 

Derek just adjusted his sunglasses and pulled out of his parking space.  It was immediately eaten by one of the cars on the road behind them, and Stiles couldn’t help but wonder if Derek was some kind of parking space whisperer, or if the reason it had seemed like Derek was late was because it had taken the man two hours to find a parking space.  That might actually explain his mood.

 

And, really… who owned a car in New York City.

 

“So, where do you live?  And what do you recommend I do in the city once I settle in – to my own place, I mean.  I don’t plan on settling in with you.  No, I will be out of your hair before you even notice I was here, which won’t be hard considering the layer of gel you have as a buffer – never mind.  Have you ever been to the top of the Empire State Building?  Architecturally speaking it is a…” Stiles trailed off as Derek aggressively merged with traffic, cutting off a taxi driver who looked like he was moved to paroxysmic levels of anger in response.  “Er, I’ll shut up.”

 

“That would be a good idea,” Derek said, hands tightening perceptibly around the steering wheel until his knuckles were white. 

 

x.x.x.x.x.

 

It wasn’t that Stiles successfully managed to keep quiet for the full thirty minutes it took to drive downtown, it was that every time he opened his mouth, Derek seemed to get slightly more aggressive behind the wheel of his car until Stiles was clutching the armrest and shutting his mouth in terror.

 

It reaffirmed Stiles’ stance on Derek Hale being a huge asshole.

 

Finally, they pulled up outside of a seriously ugly apartment building.  On the way through the upper west side, Stiles had been charmed.  When they crossed town to the east side, he’d enjoyed the cut through Central Park.  He was about eighty percent sure they drove past places he’d seen on television and that they were stopped beneath a scene from the Avengers movie.

 

“Are we here?” Stiles asked as Derek got out of the car.  At the sound of his voice, Derek clenched his teeth and Stiles had to crane his neck to make sure he was opening the trunk.

 

Ok, so either they were at Derek’s apartment or Derek had decided he had enough and was leaving Stiles on the street. 

 

“Come on,” Derek indicated.  “It’s down the block.”

 

Yeah, down the block of really ugly buildings from the 70s that kind of killed Stiles’ soul a little.  “Oh no, it’s fine,” he muttered sarcastically, grabbing his luggage.  “Don’t offer to help me or anything.  It’s do-able.  One of my suitcases practically piggybacks the other.  I mean it’s a good job I have this whole strap-on thing working for me…” Stiles trailed off as Derek frowned at him over his shoulder.  “That’s not what it’s called, is it?”

 

For the first time Derek showed signs of being a human under the whole Terminator shtick he did so well, his lips curling slightly in amusement. “I’m pretty sure it’s not, no,” he said, indicating for Stiles to enter what was actually a decent looking apartment building.

 

Decent until Derek actually grabbed one of Stiles’ bags and started climbing the stairs.

 

“What floor?” Stiles panted behind him, because Derek had grabbed one bag.  One.  Out of three.  It felt like Stiles was being pulled, slowly, to his death, because surely he’d run out of steam and collapse, only for the luggage to drag him down to the bottom floor.

 

“Sixth.”

 

Eugh, asshole.

 

“This isn’t a two bedroom apartment,” Derek said, shoving open the door to his place and actually helping Stiles through it by depositing the first suitcase and reaching for the duffle so Stiles could fit through the door.  “It’s a one bedroom plus den.”

 

Stiles knew what he was expecting from Derek.  He figured if he was lucky it would be a cramped room with a tiny couch, because the myth of all the television shows based in New York City was the illusion of space.  Derek would have to be rich to afford something that wasn’t basically a closet, and in Beacon Hills the Hales might be slightly well-to-do, but Beacon Hills standards were far removed from New York City standards.

 

Whoa, Stiles decided once he stepped firmly into the apartment.  Either Derek Hale was making bank, or his dad had just gotten him in bed (metaphorically?) (no, definitely metaphorically) with some kind of mobster.

 

A criminal with a really nice apartment.  Stiles could live with that.  Literally.

 

For a week.

 

He'd been expecting back pain, but his dad made it sound like he'd be able to sleep on a real bed in a real bedroom... well, a real den.  But it couldn't be that bad, right?

 

“It’s a nice place!” Stiles started enthusiastically.  It was nice, just like the car, but Stiles’ appreciation for vehicles that weren’t his jeep was negligible, but Derek lived in a pre-war apartment, all hardwood floors and exposed bricks.  Shamefully, someone had gutted the rooms at some point, probably when separating a larger apartment into two units at some point in the 70s (Stiles could see a few familiar markers in the design of the interior walls) and only retained the high ceiling, crowned moldings, and high windows.  The coil heating system was gone, converted into forced air, and actually... determining when all the changes had been done, an architectural palimpsest of New York eras, would probably be able to distract him from the awkward for at least an hour.   Maybe he could do an assignment on it for one of his courses, and this whole thing would be worth more than the eye candy.

 

He was mostly talking about the building.  Derek Hale counted too.  Stiles hadn’t missed the way his thigh muscles had moved in his suit as he climbed the stairs.  That was definitely easy on the eyes.

 

Derek dropped Stiles’ bag beside the couch.  “And this is where you’ll be sleeping.”

 

Stiles stared.  He’d been led to believe that he’d at least be sleeping on a bed.  Maybe...

 

“It doesn’t pull out,” Derek finished, likely reading the expression on Stiles’ face.

 

Stiles dropped his bags and sat on his new bed.  At least Derek seemed to like nice masculine utile comfort things so it wasn’t a loveseat or one of those delicate frufru-y couches or cheap futons that felt hard as a rock while sitting on it.  He could manage a couch for a few days, it just added to his commitment to get out as soon as possible.

 

“It’s a nice couch,” he managed indifferently, noticing the repetitive nature of his compliments.  

 

Derek cleared his throat, standing at the foot of the couch/bed/torture device like some kind of General about to give orders.

 

Stiles barely managed to keep from rolling his eyes and the only thing that stopped him was that if Derek Hale wanted to throw down some rules, Stiles was a guest in his home.  And Stiles wasn’t stupid enough to look a gift horse in the mouth, or, as the case might be, roll his eyes at Derek’s orthodontically straight teeth.

 

“Rules first,” Derek started in a stern tone. “No partying.  No friends over.  No drugs.  No alcohol.  No smoking.  No Axe Body Spray.  No sex.” Derek eyed Stiles.  “Don’t even think about masturbating on my leather couch.”

 

“... wha...”

 

Who said things like that?

 

Stiles wouldn’t do that!

 

Ok, he probably would, but give him some credit... he wouldn’t have done it on the first night!

 

Mostly because his wrists ached from dragging his luggage up six flights of stairs.

 

“No loud noises after 10 PM,” Derek continued on blithely.  “You can eat whatever food I have and you can shower in the morning once I’ve gone to work.”

 

“You’re not the kind of crazy who enforces a bathroom schedule, are you?” Stiles questioned suspiciously, because _of course_.  Derek Hale was getting less hot by the moment.  Stiles was kind of glad that he wasn’t finding all of this out based on his previous ‘attractive man, get him to bring me home for sex and a place to stay’ scenario, because there was nothing less sexy than being told he wasn’t allowed to use the bathroom whenever he wanted to.

 

“It’s a _one bedroom_ **plus den** ,” Derek reaffirmed with emphasis, and Stiles wasn’t sure he actually understood how emphasizing things worked, because Derek had actually stressed the entire sentence.  “There’s a half bath wedged next to the front door beside the laundry closet that you can use, but the full bathroom with the shower is an ensuite to my bedroom, so you’ll use it when I’m gone.”

 

“When you’re gone?” Stiles echoed, slightly horrified.  And, ok, that didn’t actually sound as bad as a lot of alternatives, but still.  Having to schedule his showers around another person sounded like an invitation for Stiles to suddenly feel the burning need to be clean whenever Derek was around.

 

And really, if he wasn’t allowed to masturbate on the couch, the whole shower situation might get sticky if Hottie Hale kept wearing business suits, because if there were two things Stiles really appreciated, it was a man in a nicely fitted suit and a man in really tight jeans, and Derek was definitely not the type for the tight jeans.

 

Derek looked at his watch and hesitated.  “I have to go back to work,” he said tersely, staring at Stiles for a full minute in what Stiles would label as a distrustful way.

 

“I am the son of a Sheriff,” Stiles reminded him.  “I’m not going to steal your things.”

 

“I’ve met the children of law enforcement professionals, before,” Derek told him, making it sound like an insult, as though reminding Derek who his father was had the opposite effect of what Stiles intended.

 

And yeah, maybe Stiles could see that.  One of his dad’s deputies had a daughter who sold marijuana all through high school, and in his undergrad years, well he didn’t really want to think about what one of his dormmates, the son of a rather prominent Lieutenant in the San Francisco Police Department did in his spare time.

 

Derek frowned at him again, an expression that Stiles basically read as regret for allowing Stiles into his home in the first place.  “There are spare towels beneath the sink,” he allowed.  “And a key in the kitchen drawer nearest to the fridge.”

 

Then he was gone.

 

Heh, Derek was more trusting than Stiles had given him credit for.  He was more trusting than Stiles would be in his position, but maybe that was because Stiles was fully aware of how much of a nosy snoop he was, whereas Derek didn’t have the slightest idea that leaving Stiles alone in his apartment didn’t mean Stiles would take his stuff and sell it, it meant Stiles would look through his underwear drawer and beneath the bed and through anything that even suggested that Derek might use it as a place to hide things.

 

Like the bedside drawer!  You can’t hide your porn from Stiles, Derek Hale.

 

x.x.x.x.x.

 

Stiles ended up not snooping through Derek’s bedroom because, frankly, he had enough things to think about.  Maybe it was a mistake not to check to see if Derek had any indicators of being a serial killer, like a trophy box, or a leather kit full of knives stored away from the kitchen, or a collection of Edgar Allan Poe, but Stiles was still trying to wrap his mind around the tiny little closet of a bathroom situated right across from the front door.  There was a toilet and a sink, and barely even standing room to reach either of them.  The fridge was filled with condiments and food that had gone bad weeks ago, and the couch...

 

Well, it was comfortable enough to sit on, but the first thing Stiles tried was stretching across it, and it felt like inside of the couch was a series of bars specifically designed to hit all of his pressure points.  It felt like a gridiron - the torture kind, not the football kind - was digging into his shoulder, hip, and knee when he turned on his side.  It was really going to test the parameters of Stiles’ claim that he could sleep anywhere, that was for sure.

 

And! And! To add insult to injury, the ‘den’ was basically an empty room with a desk and a computer chair on wheels that had been left, forgotten, in the center of the floor about three feet away from the desk.  

 

Stiles understood why there wasn’t a bed in there.  He wasn’t sure a bed would fit in there, even those tiny cot-sized ones.

 

Fuck Derek Hale, Mrs. Hale, his dad, the con men who stole his money, and the administration who had accepted him to Columbia but not SCI-Arc because he didn’t fulfill their ‘out of state’ quota.  Whatever that meant.

 

Stiles was seriously contemplating his chances of staying in a hotel so he didn’t wake up with a hernia when he finally got around to checking out the ensuite bathroom, immediately fumbling for his phone.

 

_You’ve reached the voicemail of ____Scott McCall__. Please leave your name, number, and brief message, and I will get back to you as soon as possible. Beep._

 

“Scott, you douche, personalize your voice mail.  And since when does your phone go to voicemail?  It doesn’t matter - Scott, Derek Hale has one of those showers that is like sex.  You know, the ones with the wall full of sprays that hit your body like a million little pulsating firehoses massaging your muscles?  It practically masturbates for you.  So have fun with your one showerhead, loser, because I might be sleeping on a couch....”

 

_End of message.  To save this..._

 

Screw it, he’d send Scott a picture instead. Only, once he checked his messages, he found a ton of progressively more anxious ones from Scott.  Not anxious enough for Scott to answer his phone, apparently, but anxious enough to fill up Stiles’ inbox.

 

**New text from Scott:**

_so what happned w the guy?_

 

**New text from Scott:**

_Did he take you home to make you his mistress?  Are you a kept man now?  Solves all your prblems._

 

**New text from Scott:**

_Did Darren Hale show up?  Is he terrible?  Remembr when mom got me that drive back to SF with her coworker’s daughter and the entire ride smelled of mushrooms and feet? Terrible._

 

**New text from Scott:**

_Are you having sex right now?  I don’t want to know deets but I’m worried._

 

 _The future is now. Beam me up, Scott!_ Stiles sent back, and then took a [picture of the really awesome shower](http://www.eieihome.com/Custom/Upload_files/images/Multiple%20shower%20heads.jpg).

 

**New text from DAD:**

_Answer your BFF or you’ll be returning home for a funeral.  Mine, if Mrs. McCall has any say in it.  Talia says Derek says he found you._

 

Derek was so whipped.  Definitely a momma’s boy, and Stiles would mock if it didn’t make him feel the absence of his more keenly than usual, because he’d be a momma’s boy, too, probably, and would take in strays if she asked him to.

 

He was halfway through composing a message to his dad confirming that Derek had found him, when he realized that maybe that wasn’t the best way to go.  Stiles got kind of assholey when he was hungry, and the last thing he had eaten was a vending machine snack cake, he wasn’t even sure what kind since Twinkies didn’t even exist anymore and it had kind of looked like a Twinkie.

 

Actually, that narrowed it down.  He ate a not-a-Twinkie, unless Twinkies were back now?

 

And now he was so hungry he was fixating on the not-a-Twinkie but maybe-a-Twinkie he ate.  It made his rational mind go out the window, and when Stiles was no longer thinking rationally he did things like buy _I Support Single Moms_ shirts, because not being sensible meant he had to rely on being underhanded.

 

Should he?  Well, he was really hungry and the key wasn’t in the drawer Derek had indicated, so...

 

_Dad, I’m going to have to check into a hotel.  I don’t know who Derek Hale picked up, but it wasn’t me. Maybe pass on my cell so we can coordinate?_

 

Five minutes later his phone rang from an unknown number.

 

“Hello?” Stiles said in a questioning tone.

 

“I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, kid, but call your dad and tell him you’re...”

 

“Who is this?” Stiles asked, interrupting Derek before he could get a good rant going, grinning to himself as he flopped back on the horrendously painful couch.

 

“Derek... Hale.”

 

“Oh, Derek!  I’ve been waiting here for hours.”

 

“Don’t give me that,” Derek warned, tone hard.  “I just spent the last five minutes on the phone with my mother assuring her that yes, I did pick up the right Stiles.  Then I was forced to find your Facebook and swear to her that the Stiles in the display picture was the same Stiles staying in my living room.”

 

“Makes you feel better to verify it, doesn’t it?” Stiles asked, smirking as he stared at the ceiling.  “You don’t really have anything to eat.  Can I make the bacon wrapped scallops in the freezer or were you saving them for something?”

 

“I don’t care,” Derek answered, definitely furious.  He was practically hissing venom. Awesome.  Stiles was going to be murdered in his sleep. “Don’t bother me at work again.”

 

“You called me!” Stiles answered indignantly before hanging up, already making his way towards the freezer.  Seriously, his choices were hors d'oeuvres or little tupperware containers of miscellaneous frozen leftovers, and he’d seen the first few episodes of Hannibal, ok?  He was never eating miscellaneous leftovers again.

 

x.x.x.x.

 

When Derek got in closer to 10 PM than 9 PM, his business suit was wilting a bit around the edges.  He stared at Stiles, sitting on the couch with spare bedding he found in the laundry room - thanks for the heads up, Derek - and kind of deflated around the edges, like he was hoping Stiles was a bad hallucination caused by a rancid pulled-pork sandwich and would be gone by the time he returned from work.  Derek was giving Stiles the impression he would rather have been robbed blind than return to his apartment to find Stiles still on the couch.

 

Derek glowered, half-heartedly if Stiles was a reliable judge of these things based on the hour or so he’d spent in Derek’s company ever, and closed himself into his bedroom.

 

… and didn’t emerge until the next morning, his hair perfectly coiffed, business suit spiffy and in a charcoal color this time, and if Stiles hadn’t just spent the night failing the test of his ability to sleep anywhere, he’d think he landed himself in the middle of a montage for a Hugo Boss commercial.

 

Because, yeah, at some point around 4 AM, he’d convinced himself that no one _that_ attractive could possibly come from Beacon Hills, Hale or not, so he was about 80% sure he was remembering the face of the model in a magazine ad he’d seen on the plane.

 

And hey! he hadn’t been murdered in his sleep, so bonus for him! he thought as Derek stalked into the kitchen and yanked open the freezer.  His every movement seemed to be fueled by rage, so Stiles was a little surprised when Derek looked into his living room and noticed Stiles sitting up on the couch, blankets pooled and twisted around his legs, and jerked in surprise, the ice tray in his hands jolting.

 

Stiles raised his hand in an awkward wave as Derek oriented himself.  He still got that squint of distrust as he stood, kicking sheets out of his way on the hardwood floor as he stepped towards the kitchen.  There was no way Stiles wanted to be awake at 7 AM, even if he’d been training himself to go to bed earlier so he could wake up at a decent time in Beacon Hills, knowing that 7 AM in New York City was.... yikes! 4 AM back home.

 

He’d rather have been eased into this, maybe with a few mornings of waking up just before they stopped serving breakfast at most fast food chains.

 

“I couldn’t find the key yesterday and I have to run up to campus today, so...”

 

Without a word Derek dropped the ice tray on the counter and reached for the drawer he indicated.  He ended up shaking the contents, a step away from taking the whole drawer out of the cabinet and dumping it on the floor.  Instead, he shoved the drawer closed and started rummaging through a bowl of fake fruit on the counter.

 

The keys were underneath a large plastic apple.

 

“Funny, Laura,” Derek muttered, tossing them onto the counter before getting back to his breakfast of champions.  The kind of champions who consumed their protein as liquid.

 

Which... most of them, these days?

 

“So, I really meant it when I said this was a nice place,” Stiles said, rubbing his foot down the pajama pants seam of his other leg.  He felt totally conspicuous being the only one of them not dressed and ready for the day, even if it was barely 7 AM, and Derek was crazy to be awake and in his business suit this early.

 

Derek just looked at him while throwing powder into his blender.

 

Figured.  The only thing in the fridge not past the expiry date was the almond milk and maybe a tub of yogurt, though that was on the iffy line between maybe still good and maybe soured.  “I should know,” Stiles continued.  “Places like this are kind of my thing.  I mean, my specialty... the topic of my advanced degree, even.”

 

Derek threw some ice into the blender.

 

Yep, if Derek was going to wake him up this early, Stiles was going to tell him his life story.

 

“I lived in this cool old apartment building in San Francisco and they were doing this historic preservation project that kept the original building as the foundation, and then built up.  They brought in this guy who was supposed to preserve the historical significance of the neighbourhood, but he was a total hack and just fucked over the entire building, man.  When I pointed that out at one of the preservation meetings, his firm basically said ‘if you can do better, kid...” And well, it was the project I used as my studio track project in architectural design so of course I could do better, and I did. They totally bought my design, but not really because I’m not accredited yet, but unofficially win/win all around.  So the firm didn’t get fired and I’m getting my Master’s degree paid for - pretty sweet deal, right?”

 

“It’s just an apartment, kid,” Derek responded mockingly, pouring his gross gelatinous shake into a to-go mug.  “It’s nice that you approve of the structure, but don’t get too comfortable.  You’re only going to be here for a week at the most.”

 

Yep, Derek was still a Grade A a-hole at 7 AM in the morning, which was fine because Stiles enjoyed jerks.  He took it as free rein to unleash his own inner jerkiness, because if Derek wanted to play?

 

It was game Stiles always...

 

Derek paused at the front door before Stiles could finish that though, squinting at him over the length of the apartment.

 

“Did you just say you finished your undergrad?”

 

“Uh, yeah,” Stiles responded, wondering if Derek expected him to wash out the gross bottom of his blender before it cemented.  He was no one’s maid!  “I’m getting my M.Arch.  I said that like three times already, man.”

 

Not like Stiles actually thought Derek was listening or anything.

 

Derek just frowned at him.  Stiles supposed that close up a look like that might be penetrative, but from this far away Derek just looked like he was sucking on a lemon with his eyebrows.  “It’s been a decade since I graduated high school,” Derek said, as though that meant something.

 

“Congrats,” Stiles answered sarcastically.  “Hey, are you still friends with any of your classmates on Facebook?  Because I’ve been thinking of doing a purge.  There are only a few I still talk to, the rest are kind of people I don’t know anymore.  Most of them are huge idiots, but every so often someone will post something so stupid that I’m entertained for hours with the knowledge I used to know some guy who is now going viral on Failbook.  I mean, it’s only right I put them on Failbook, right?”

 

Derek left without giving Stiles a straight answer.


	2. Life With Derek: Architecture is Stiles' Porn

 

To Stiles, the beauty of New York City, Manhattan specifically, was the amalgamation of architectural styles from over the last few hundred years, from the time the British had conquered the settlement of New Amsterdam and renamed it New York, to current times.  A tavern from 1719 stood in the Financial District, next to an office building.  The Flatiron building had been a ground-breaking skyscraper, once, and for a city that never sleeps, the hotels had always highlighted some of their most crowning achievements which had since slowly fallen to decay and ruin.

 

Ok, pieces of New York City were kind of butt ugly, and Derek lived in one of the least inspired neighbourhoods Stiles had ever seen outside of Los Angeles.  At least from what he’d seen from the car on the drive in.

 

Stiles didn’t really want to respect Derek for anything, really, because it was far easier for him not to like Derek at all, but it wasn’t just that Derek had decent taste in apartments, it was that Derek seemed to have gone out of his way by a few blocks to find a pre-war apartment that was still more or less within walking distance of his work, or whatever reason Derek Hale had to choose this apartment over all the rest.  The neighbourhood had a lot of buildings from the 1970s, and as far as Stiles could tell online, the amenities of those included an elevator and were slightly less expensive than Derek’s apartment (according to the price his mother complained about him spending a month, it was always possible that Derek embellished to her, and then she embellished to his father, but Stiles didn’t think so).

 

The point, if any, was that Stiles really, really wanted to dislike Derek.  It would have been incredibly easy for him to dislike Derek based on everything that he had seen so far, but he couldn’t entirely dislike someone who picked one of the few buildings on the block that Stiles really loved.  If anything, Derek’s taste made Stiles want to learn more about him to find out the _why_ of it, Derek’s motivations and personality and aesthetics that gave them something in common besides the town they came from.

 

x.x.x.x.x.

 

Of course, Stiles couldn’t really like anyone who had such terrible taste in couches, so it evened itself out.

 

x.x.x.x.x.

 

Stiles was rarely a good person.  A decent human being?  Sure, he’d stop his jeep to help an old lady who fell on the street, and he wouldn’t go around pushing old ladies down and robbing them.  He had morals.

 

But when it came to not snooping around Derek’s apartment?  Those morals lasted about 12 hours.  Because while Stiles wasn’t evil about old ladies or anything, he could still be kind of a jerk.

 

“Snooping.  Snooping.  You can’t keep your secrets from Stiles Stilinski, because he will find them Derek Hale.  Oh yes he will!” Stiles sang in a cheerful tone.  “I will look under your bed for your porn, and under your boxers for your sex toys, because those are the fun things and I only want to find the fun things.  No homo.  Homogenous stuff, that is.  Like your taste in furniture.  Please, please, please let there be homo.”

 

He half expected Derek to pop out of the closet and catch him mid-act, mostly because of the embarrassing song.  He didn’t really care if Derek found him looking through his stuff, because Stiles always just blamed his inquisitive nature on his father.

 

People seemed to fall for that.  Stiles wasn’t sure why.  As far as he knew, his dad had never conducted a search without a warrant in his life (and he was sticking to that story).

Derek Hale apparently 1. had nothing to hide; or, 2. hid his unmentionables really well, because by the time Stiles was finished going through the apartment, all he knew about Derek was that he kept generic drugstore lube and condoms (good for him) beside his bed, his laptop was password protected but thanks to Windows 8, Stiles knew Derek kept a picture of his sister losing a hotdog eating contest as his Lock Screen image, and that Derek, contrary to evidence, did own more than business suits.

 

Stiles found it hard to believe too.

 

What he didn’t find was any semblance of a personal life. All the apartment furnishings were kind of generic, like Derek had walked through Macy’s or Bed, Bath & Beyond and bought out the already assembled displays, and he didn’t have any framed pictures of his mother up, which may or may not have been a deliberate choice.

 

There wasn’t really much to tell him about Derek as a person, except that Derek was kind of fastidiously clean, like the kind of person who might get upset if Stiles left his bedding on the couch 24/7 or a sandwich plate on the coffee table.

 

Which made the contents of his fridge all the more noticeable.  It was a mystery that Stiles intended to solve.

 

Derek’s breakfast supplies were slightly better developed than the rest of his cupboards.  Oh, there were no poptarts, or cereal (even of the granola variety), or bagels, but there was plenty of things that could be thrown into a blender, including the tub of questionable Greek Yogurt.  It really told Stiles something about Derek Hale.

 

Mostly that Derek Hale took his breakfast protein shakes very seriously, but also that Derek didn’t eat in his own apartment very often.  There were remnants in the fridge that said that might not have always been the truth, but the fact that Derek hadn’t even noticed or bothered to clean out the gross rotting food in his vegetable crisper said a lot about him as a person.

 

What it said was that Stiles ended up cleaning out the blender so that he could make his own smoothie, forgoing all the weird wheatgrass whatever ingredients Derek had lined up like an all you can eat health bar and just dumping in some yogurt and frozen berries.  If he had vodka or rum, he would have added that too, because there was no one around to judge the fact that he enjoyed his alcohol to taste like summer dessert every once in a while, even if it was far too early on a Tuesday morning to be drinking.

 

He’d heard the _Tales From Grad School_ \- he knew that wouldn’t last very long.  Especially if he had to keep sleeping on the couch. 

 

It was a good thing the shower was godly.

 

Stiles wasn’t sure if he liked Derek Hale as a person yet (he was actually moderately sure he didn’t) but he would seduce the hell out of him if it meant he could stay forever and get to use the shower.  He’d suffer through the terrible sex – people as good looking and egotistical as Hale were usually pretty terrible at sex – because the shower would cleanse him with the spray of a dozen waterfalls blasting his body with the heat of an oasis.

 

Or something.  Whatever.  He didn’t spend the entire time trying to think up metaphors.  Shut up.

 

Like, he hadn’t even realized how stiff his back had been from sleeping on the couch (lie), but after that shower he felt no pain.

 

Minimal pain.

 

Ok, Derek’s couch really sucked.

 

x.x.x.x.x.

 

Stiles had… a really good day on the streets of New York.  The transit system hadn’t been impossible to figure out with the handy help of his cell phone and google maps.  He’d found out that Derek’s apartment was a few blocks away from Grand Central Terminal, which had been on his list of places to visit and he’d have to go there to get _anywhere in the city_ every time he wanted to go somewhere not within walking distance.

 

Which, really rocked.

 

It was like finding out that his jeep no longer worked, so for a limited time he got to hitch a ride to school in the TARDIS – like Christmas and New Years and long weekends all rolled into one.

 

AND he’d turned a corner and came face to face with the Chrysler Building, because apparently Derek Hale’s neighborhood?  It wasn’t as boring as it looked on first glance.  He ended up gawking like a goober at that entire corner of Lexington and 42nd St.

 

So it had been an unexpectedly great morning, full of architectural nerd-gasms.

 

He was feeling pretty accomplished when he unlocked the door to Derek’s apartment and dragged his bag of food through it, believing he’d done everything and more that he had set out to do that morning until he really thought about it.  He was still homeless, he hadn’t even made any plans to view any apartment options, and now he’d bought a bunch of groceries, which just screamed ‘settling down’ to him. 

 

He needed to stop, check himself, and really dedicate some time to finding a place to live.

 

Tomorrow.

 

“Arrrg!” Stiles yelped as he dropped onto the couch only for his elbow to hit against the barely-padded metal bar that had plagued him all the previous night.  He could have sworn that when he arrived at Derek’s place more than 24 hours before that the couch had been softer.  “Motherfucker,” he said to the empty living room at large as he cradled his arm, pain radiating from his funny bone.  “Well, I guess it’s just you and me, girl?  I should probably call you something, seeing as how we’re gonna be spending a lot of nights together.  Maybe Michelle, because you’re hard and steely beneath your exterior like the first lady.”

 

The fact that he was talking to the couch pretty much said it all.  Stiles knew that New York City would be lonely and full of strangers, but he missed the easy camaraderie of having someone to talk to.  He missed Scott, who was not only his best friend and platonic life partner, but also the best roommate ever. 

 

Well, Scott was actually sometimes a terrible roommate, but the idea was that Stiles could take Scott’s particular brand of crazy-person-I-share-space-with, because when it came right down to it, everybody was crazy. Especially after you shared living space with them for any amount of time.  It made Stiles miss Scott terribly, because it was starting to look like he’d have to live with some other crazy person, and it would probably be someone who was actually nuts, and not just roommate-crazy.

 

And, speak of the devil, Scott was signed into Skype.  Stiles eagerly pressed the button to establish the call, not really caring that he was using his cellphone data plan rather than the wifi.  Sometimes, you just needed to chat face to face with your best friend, even if Stiles had no intention of telling Scott that he was having a momentary lapse of enthusiasm.

 

“I don’t have long, man,” Scott said, his face freezing on screen before jumping ahead by a few seconds.

 

“Summary?” Stiles offered.  “School: ok. Derek: sucks. Shower: amazing. New York: awesome. Apartment sitch: a work in progress.  You?”

 

“It’s not the same without you,” Scott said honestly. 

 

Scott always had been better at summing things up honestly than Stiles.  “Aww, buddy, me too.  I miss you in a totally acceptable bro way.”

 

“Just say you miss me,” Scott said, pulling a face.

 

“I miss you.  I love you.  You’re my better half.  If this girl thing doesn’t work out for you, we should make a pact to marry each other when we’re 40 because you’ll always be my favourite person to live with.”

 

“Stiles!” Scott chided, but he was laughing and looked really pleased.  “Don’t be so extreme.”

 

“I just really don’t want a roommate.  I’m gonna do everything I can to not have one.”

 

“It would be cheaper…” Scott mused.

 

“Nope!” Stiles said, cutting Scott off.  “No roommate!  Turns out I can’t take living with someone else.”

 

“Is it that bad?  What’s going on with Hale? I can’t picture which one he is at all.”

 

THE HOT ONE Stiles’ brain supplied.  He ended up making an exaggerated grimace at Scott, completely reluctant to talk about Derek.  “Derek’s… oh, don’t get me started,” Stiles sneered.  “I told you about the couch?”

 

“Hard as a rock?  Just really uncomfortable?  Yeah, you texted me at 2 in the morning.”

 

“So, so hard.  My back won’t be the same if I have to sleep here for a week.  And Derek is just… an _asshole_.”

 

“There has to be something good about New York, right?” Scott asked, giving Stiles his most earnest and concerned expression.  “You were so excited.”

 

“New York is amazing.  I saw all these great buildings today, including Grand Central Terminal—“

 

“That one you _paused The Avengers_ to give a lecture about?”

 

Scott did not let things go, sometimes.  Pausing the Avengers, Single Moms t-shirts. 

 

“Calm down, it was the third time we both watched it.  But yeah, that one.  I also saw some architectural—“

 

“I love you, too,” Scott said, “but remember when I said I only have a few minutes?  Well, that’s down to about five.”

 

Right.  Someday Stiles would find someone he could talk about this stuff to.  Scott was not that person, or at least Scott rarely was that person, but sometimes Stiles managed to corner him, including that time when he’d presented Mrs. McCall with a list of reasons why her house could be granted landmark status by Beacon Hills and Scott had been trapped in the car for two hours with them.

“What I really want to know is what happened with that hottie in the architecture building?” Scott asked, because Scott fully understood that there were a few topics that took Stiles’ mind off awesome buildings when he got particularly enthusiastic, and those were: attractive people, attractive people Stiles actually had contact with, food, insulting one of his various popular culture nerd pursuits, and that time with the streakers.

 

“Didn’t I tell you?” Stiles questioned in surprise.  “No, I know I told you.”

 

“Dude, the only thing you told me was that Derek Hale has a porn shower and a shitty couch. And yes, we both can agree that on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being unimportant and 10 being save the world, a porn shower rates about a 15...”

 

“A 15, really?  You have all the numbers in the world to choose from, and that’s what you go with?  Why not a clever sex position?”

 

“I don’t know! You realize that the only really known position with numbers associated with it is 69, and I don’t think you want to try that in the shower.  Take it from me, you feel like you’re drowning even when you try it OUT of the shower.”

 

“You’ve got to be imaginative.  Haven’t I ever told you that the key to coming up with really clever things is not to allow yourself to be bound by what people have thought up before you?”

 

“Stiles, I’m pretty sure that’s bull, and that people are generally pervs, so if there was a number to best describe sex in a shower, we’d know it.

 

Challenge accepted, Scott. 

 

“Well, how about a 57? The 7 being the guy getting the blow job curled over the other guy to stop the water from choking him?”

 

“Stop bringing up blow jobs!” Scott expressed with a wild look on his face that told Stiles that maybe their married-by-40 pact would never work out, because Stiles loved bringing up blow jobs (haaa!) and Scott loved acting like a prude when he heard the term, and actually… that made a really great odd-couple scenario.

 

“It wouldn’t work in Derek’s shower anyway because the water comes from all sides.  Oh my god, Scott, what if Derek’s a porn star?”

 

“Wouldn’t you have come across him by now?”  Scott muttered, hand over his eyes. Aww yeah, he was picturing things now.  Then Scott looked up suspiciously. “And why are you being evasive?”

 

“About what?” Stiles feigned innocence.  Dammit, that was the worst thing about best friends.

 

“You know what!  About the guy.   _The guy._  The one you said was _beautiful people_ and you wanted to move in with him.”

 

Stiles grumbled indecipherable.  Dammit, he’d really thought he’d managed to distract Scott.  He’d been so close.

 

“What was that?” Scott asked.  “I couldn’t get that.  Did you go through a tunnel or something?”

 

Stiles and Scott had been friends for years.  They would continue to be friends for years to come. They might even be platonic life partners for realsies, but Stiles still had no idea if Scott was being genuine or a sarcastic little shit sometimes.  Because he sounded genuine, but he was also really good at calling Stiles out on his BS.

 

“Well?” Scott prompted after Stiles hedged a little too long.  He has a mournful expression on his face, pouting and giving Stiles the full effect of his disappointment.  “You always told me things when we lived on the same coast.”

 

Scott really was such a shit, Stiles decided, not for the first time, and definitely his favourite person, no matter how much Stiles did not want to tell him _the thing_. 

 

Maybe dismissing it would work?  “It was nothing.”

 

“Sti—“

 

“ _It was Derek_.” Stiles yelled, interrupting Scott.  “The guy was Derek.”

 

Scott was silent for a moment and then started laughing.  “Oh my god, Stiles!  Let me get this straight...” then, without spelling out what he attempting to understand, Scott started laughing again until he was gasping for breath.  “Well, you wanted him to take you home with him,” Scott exclaimed between breaths. 

 

“You suck,” Stiles said.

 

“Yeeeeah,” Scott said.  “I’m not the one with a humungo crush on the guy giving me a place to stay.”

 

“Derek Hale is an asshole!  I don’t, nor will I ever, have a crush on him.  Let me tell you about what he’s done so far.  You won’t believe how huge of a jerk he is.”

 

Scott started laughing again.  “It starts!” he crowed.  “But I’m sooo late now.  I got to go, but you have fun living with your dream guy.”

 

“He’s not!”  Stiles said to the blank screen.  “Well timed, Scott, well timed.”

 

And he didn’t feel so lonely anymore.

 

Though, what was Derek’s job?  Now that Stiles was wondering about it, he realized he had no idea.

 

Was porn star a better guess than mobster?

 

Probably not, what with the dirt Stiles had managed to dig up in Derek’s bedroom, which was basically nothing.  Derek was so vanilla it was painful to think about.  Even Stiles had a pair of handcuffs and some toys in one of his suitcases, so he’d expect someone who was in the industry to have like… a sex chest.

 

Damn… that would have been awesome to find, actually.

 

x.x.x.x.x.

Derek returned to his apartment slightly earlier than he had the evening before.  Stiles had been back since around supper time and had been bored for the last hour or so.  So bored, he’d cracked open one of the architecture textbooks he’d bought earlier and started to read it.

 

That was his story and he was sticking to it.  It had nothing to do with the fact that Stiles was kind of a nerd about this stuff.  Nothing to do with that at all, no sir.  It wasn’t like he was super excited about his preservation studio on reading the design, context and history of buildings, or his course on American Architecture.

 

That was fool talk.

 

So when Derek returned around 8, Stiles was curled up on the chair – the only place to sit in the living room that wasn’t Michelle, and he was not spending any more time on the couch than he had to.  His feet were bare against the fabric, and it wasn’t that he was attempting to curl up on himself, it was just that Stiles was more comfortable in some very strange positions (drumroll, please) and sitting sideways on a chair with one leg against his chest and the other dangling to the floor was the best he could do given the circumstances.

 

It was far better than cleaning the fridge of what had been food, once upon a time, because that shit just wasn’t healthy. 

 

Of course, he ended up buying bagel bites, so he wasn’t sure he had the high ground.

 

Someday, Derek would probably accidentally try eating the really gross molding Thai takeout in the back, and Stiles would lose his Derek-related boner forever.

 

 

“I need the internet password if I’m going to find an apartment,” Stiles told Derek without looking up.

 

“It’s on a post-it stuck on the back of the router,” Derek answered, opening the fridge.  

 

“Speaking of, I shoved my suitcases into your office to get them out of the way.  I hope you don’t care, because there’s nowhere else for me to put them unless you want to trip over them.”  Stiles looked up to shoot Derek a judgmental look, because Derek was the least helpful person ever. 

 

Damn.  Damn.

 

**_Damn._ **

 

Derek was still really, stupidly attractive.  Was that ever going to stop being a surprise?  Stiles sincerely hoped so. He was hoping it happened soon, because the moment Derek was in his line of sight Stiles was struck anew by how gorgeous he was and it was difficult to reconcile how much he wanted to dislike his face when he couldn’t actually _dislike his face_.  “Also, all the food on the second shelf is mine,” Stiles finished lamely.

 

Derek was even stupidly attractive scowling into the fridge like he was seeing the contents for the first time.  “Where’s my food and why is there Thai tak… what the hell is this?”  Derek pulled out the container of Thai food and took a whiff of it, his face turning into what had to be the most hilarious expression of disgust Stiles had ever seen.

 

It was all in the eyebrows.

 

“It looks like Thai, but I can’t be sure,” Stiles answered, holding back a smirk as Derek dumped the container into the garbage, still holding his sour down-turned mouth facial expression, the very image of [Sam the Eagle](http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110117133055/muppet/images/0/07/Sam_Eagle.JPG).  They could be twins.  It was uncanny.  Stiles couldn’t help but snort at that, because _oh my god_.

 

“Why are there rotting groceries in my fridge?”  Derek expressed in a furious tone, and while Stiles was marginally sure it was a rhetorical question, he felt compelled to answer it.

 

“I don’t know, why are there rotting groceries?  Only you can answer that one.” Stiles said, raising his eyebrow at Derek.  “I mean, some of them aren’t rotting, but that’s probably my food.  Don’t worry, I’m not nesting.  I just super like to eat at least 2 meals a day, sometimes 4.  It’s a thing I do for basic health reasons.  I even cleared off a shelf for myself so you could tell what was yours and what was mine,” he told Derek, gesturing with his hands.  “A clear demarcation, if you will.”

 

Derek scowled at the fridge.  

 

“You don’t moonlight as some kind of botanist, do you?  Because I’m pretty sure there were mushrooms in there growing a whole different kind of mushroom in their decomposing remains.”  Stiles smirked at Derek’s expense.  “No, wait, I have it!  Do you have some kind of superpower that turns bad food good again?  Like the pie maker?”

 

“I’ve been busy,” Derek snapped, slamming the door of the fridge.

 

“I bought you more yogurt,” Stiles told him with an eye roll as he turned back to his text, because wow.  Touchy.  See, Stiles could be nice.  He bought Derek yogurt!  It wasn’t like Derek deserved yogurt or anything.  Stiles had to bend to get it and his back had twinged, a clear reminder of all the things Derek did not deserve from Stiles. “You were running out and I did have some at breakfast.”  He looked over to find Derek’s head bent covetously over the container of yogurt, shovelling spoonfuls of it into his mouth.

 

It was very squirrelly and kind of made it look like Derek thought Stiles was going to take the yogurt back, or chide Derek for stealing it.  And wow, Stiles was never eating out of something that looked like it could be a communal shared item again.  He’d buy his own mustard, because the way Derek was going to town on the yogurt really made Stiles regret eating some of it for breakfast.

 

Derek cooties.  Ew.

 

“Throw out the rotting things in the fridge,” Derek said around a mouthful of fermented milk products and bacterial cultures and all the good things yogurt was made up of.  It was really kind of gross, and Stiles was grateful, because minutes ago Derek had kind of been his ideal man, but now he was really rapidly tumbling to the bottom of that ladder.

 

“I’m not your maid.”

 

Derek just stared at him for a moment, his eyebrows pinched in the center as his eyes gouged out Stiles’ intestines.  

 

How intimidating could a guy be holding a spoonful of yogurt?

 

Very.

 

“I can start charging you rent per week up to half of what I pay a month,” was Derek’s counteroffer.  “Or you can clean out the fridge.”

 

Fine, if that was the way Derek wanted to play it.  Stiles narrowed his eyes in challenge, “I think your mom would find that fascinating.”

 

Derek gave him such a furious expression that Stiles was becoming even more positive that Derek was going to murder him in his sleep.

 

And ok, so Derek’s relationship with his mom might be one of the only things about him that Stiles actually liked.  Or liked to mock.  There was a fine line between the two.  All Stiles knew was that it amused him how gruff Derek could be, but he would still do things his mother told him to despite being 3,000 miles away.

 

“That’s right.  Try not being such a huge jerk all the time and maybe I’ll try being nicer too.  Maybe I’d offer to clean the fridge because I want to help out if every time we had a conversation I didn’t have to rehash things I’d already told you.  You make a little effort, I’ll make a little effort.”

 

Derek clenched his teeth so hard, Stiles had to assume he had stress headaches all the time.

 

That would explain a lot, actually.

 

“How was your day?” Derek questioned, looking pained.   “On campus?”

 

“I saw the [Chrysler Building](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/Chrysler_Building_HDR.tif/lossy-page1-399px-Chrysler_Building_HDR.tif.jpg)!”  Stiles told him.  “And [Grand Central Terminal](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Image-Grand_central_Station_Outside_Night_2.jpg).  I stopped to look at the ceiling and some asshole nearly ran me down so I screamed at him.”

 

“They’re pretty standard,” Derek muttered around his spoon, and actually looked slight relaxed for the first time as though some tension eased from his shoulders.  “Especially for this neighborhood.  If you want to go anywhere else in the city, you see them every day.  You’ll get used to it and soon you won’t even try to look at the ceiling.  It’s compelling at first, but soon it just becomes another one of those things you see every day.”

 

Was Derek trying to be comforting or was he completely forgetting that Stiles was in Architecture School again?

 

“I don’t want to get used to it.  Did you know that Grand Central and the [New York Public Library](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/0372New_York_City_Public_Library.JPG) are both famous representations of a style of architecture known as Beaux Arts?  It was originally conceptualized by the Parisian school _École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts_ and depends on sculptural decoration along with an almost ruthless symmetry.  It became a thing in the states in the period between 1880 to 1920.”

 

“Your French accent is terrible,” Derek informed him, shoving his yogurt back in the fridge.  Then, he did the most disturbing thing Stiles had ever seen and rinsed off his spoon before putting it back in the drawer.  Stiles really, really hoped he at least used hot water.  “And no, I did not know that.”

 

There were three ways for a person claim they didn’t know something.  There was ‘no, I didn’t know but I’m interested in retaining that knowledge’, closely associated to ‘tell me more’, and directly opposite the ‘I don’t care’ sneer.

 

Guess which one Derek meant?

 

Guess which one Stiles was pretending Derek meant?

 

“I’m over-simplifying it to an extreme, but personally I think that the [San Francisco City Hall](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/San_Francisco_City_Hall_2.JPG) can give both of them a run for their money.  There’s just something about New York City that makes things great, maybe because New York is so full of people overly confident about it’s worth that everybody else just falls in line – some kind of Ellis Island induction.  So, the internet, and by the internet I mean Wikipedia, says that the terminal and the library are some of the best architectural examples in that design, but I bet that was written by a New Yorker.  Not that they aren’t fine.  Because they are.  They’re the second and third finest things I’ve seen since arriving.”  After, well, Derek Hale.  “And both of them are within walking distance of this place!” Stiles finished gleefully, and almost manic expression on his face.  “And also that spoon thing was a little gross.  I know you’re used to living alone, but you realize the impression I’m getting of you right now, right?”

 

Derek eyed him before moving back to his bedroom.

 

At least Stiles had gotten further into that conversation than he had with Scott.  “Well, Michelle,” Stiles said, patting the back of the leather frame.  “It’s just you and me.”

 

Seriously, though.  What was Derek’s deal?  He looked stressed and overworked, barely ate anything from what Stiles could tell, and acted like conversation with Stiles was both the best part of his day and the worst.  Stiles was definitely going to figure him out.  Things like: what did Derek do for a living?  Why did he own a car?  Why did his facial hair look like it needed to be stroked to be fully appreciated?

 

Stiles signed a lease on his second New York City apartment a few days later and thought all those questions would go unanswered.

 

He was wrong.


	3. Life With Derek: A Strong Foundation is Key to Any Jenga Game

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, warning for spoilers for 3x02 in case you didn't see it in the summary.

Derek went into his bedroom seconds after what Stiles was mentally referring to The SPOONING Fiasco, which wasn’t nearly as fun as it ought to be, only to emerge again the next morning, clean and wearing a different suit.  Stiles wasn’t sure about ‘rested’ because if anything Derek seemed more irritable than he had the night before.  There were dark circles beneath his eyes and Derek kept blinking angrily in his direction as Stiles blearily lifted his head and scowled at Derek for turning on the blender at 6:54 AM.

 

Stiles wasn’t sure that he could even claim sympathy for the fact that Derek looked like he hadn’t slept, because it wasn’t like Stiles was able to sleep either! because hello blender in his ear before 7 AM.  That was such cruel and unusual punishment.  Wasn’t the torture rack of a couch enough?  Now Derek was using audio torture as well.

 

So far it was a routine that seemed to repeat itself.  Derek would emerge from his room and wake Stiles up, and once he left, Stiles would head up to campus and use that as the hub for his apartment searching, return home, and hours later Derek would come home, stare in his fridge, and go to bed, only to emerge the next morning looking worn out and wearing a different suit than he’d been wearing the evening before.  He’d run the blender at the same ungodly hour, staring into the living room with a blank expression that spoke of deep exhaustion (repeat ad nauseum), and though Stiles rationally knew Derek wasn’t looking at him, he was secretly convinced that Derek was plotting his murder in those moments.

 

Like, Derek’s angry face was so much more effective than anybody else’s angry face.  Stiles was like 80% convinced Derek would be shoving him into the blender one of these days and 20% convinced that maybe it was just Derek’s normal face.  He was half tempted to push Derek just to see if his expression changed in any discernible way when he actually was furious.  Controlled settings and all that, but it didn’t seem worth the risk when Derek stared at him from over the counter with his fingertips resting on top of the knife block between them.

 

Nope.  Stiles liked all his appendages and wasn’t really into the whole idea of decomposing in a dumpster, or being little pieces of miscellaneous frozen meals in Derek’s tiny freezer.

 

That was unfair to Derek.  Stiles was being an asshole and jumping to conclusions.

 

Just because Derek was obviously a murderer didn’t mean he was also a cannibal.

 

He was just a seriously creepy dude, and Stiles would probably be more wary of him if, when he stood and stretched out his limbs from being cramped on the couch all night, Derek’s jaw didn’t crack with an answering yawn that he tried to hide, but barely seemed to have the motivation to do much more than half-heartedly lift his hand off the top of the butcher block of knives.

 

Derek’s mouth stretched open really wide for someone who looked like they had perpetual closed-mouth, bitchfaced syndrome.

 

…And also like he unhinged a joint.  Derek’s mouth was like Acathla in the finale of season 2 of Buffy –  his mouth opened and Stiles almost expected some evil portal to form and swallow the world.

 

Or something.  Swallow something.  Something _big_. Stiles blinked at him and yawned again to see if he could get an encore, because huh.

 

It was kind of hard to be frightened of some dude who squirrel-ate yogurt, drank his breakfast, and blinked in a confused (and adorable. No! Bad Stiles!) way after practically dislocating something on a yawn.

The blender made some kind of awful screeching sound and Derek adeptly switched it off while using his other hand to curl around one of the knives and use it to stab his breakfast concoction in a way that had Stiles reeling back, feeling both threatened and at the same time a little comforted to know that the reason Derek had his hand on the knives hadn’t been because of him. 

 

Also, the fact that Derek seemed to do something so normal and generally stupid to the health of both his blender and knife set (like a normal person) really lightened Stiles’ mood.

 

“Later!” Stiles said as Derek moved towards the door, his steps mechanical as he reached for his travel mug and then his keys.  It was really quite possible that if Stiles moved Derek’s shoes a foot away from where he usually put them, Derek would stand there for a full minute trying to shove his feet into thin air.

 

Derek grunted in return and shoved his travel mug in Stiles’ general direction before going out the door.  Stiles thought that was supposed to be a wave?  Or some kind of acknowledgement?  Or possibly the exhausted business man’s way of saying fuck you when they didn’t have hands free?  Stiles couldn’t be sure, he hadn’t lived in New York City long enough to tell.

 

He could let go of the idea of sleeping in right now, because his back was protesting as he tried to settle back onto the couch and he was about 50% certain that he was developing a bedsore on his hip.  He’d have to ask Scott, Scott was working as a Patient Care Assistant to save for medical school and therefore knew about all kinds of gross things, like bedsores and vomit and infections.

 

Scott did not faint at the sight of needles.  He was like Superman or something, if Superman’s power was not throwing up at really disgusting bodily fluids and stuff.  Personally, Stiles thought that was more challenging than leaping over tall buildings. 

 

 _You’re my hero,_ he texted Scott apropos of nothing.  Then he got to work.  His reward?  He was totally spending personal time in the shower later.  Pornography, cast of one.

 

 _I love grapefruit, it tingles in my mouth_ , Scott texted back a few hours later as Stiles sat on the subway heading uptown.

 

x.x.x.x.

 

The first thing Stiles did was clean out the fridge, dumping all the rotting food in a garbage bag and then dragging the garbage… uh.

 

Derek hadn’t told him that part.

 

It couldn’t stay in the kitchen or next to the door, because as the food warmed to room temperature it would start to smell even more garbage-y, and while Stiles had worked fast food once as a teen and had become familiar enough with the scent of rotting garbage that it didn’t make him want to throw up the same way bodily fluids did, he didn’t want to have to smell it.

 

Stiles was seriously tempted to shove the whole thing back in the fridge and let Derek deal with it.

 

Instead he sent Derek a text message: _garbage. What do I do with it?_

 

 **New text from Derek Hale** :

_Throw it out._

 

That actually hadn’t taken too long.  Stiles was impressed.  _But where? It’s bagged, where do I put it?_ Stiles send back, and then added another text for clarification, because he’d seen the way Derek managed his life, and being as concise as possible would probably get through the fog Derek seemed to be under.  _Dumpster location?_

 

Now that he had Derek’s attention, he felt better about leaving the bag of trash by the door.  Surely Derek would answer him in the time it took for the garbage to really start smelling, right?

 

If not, he could always bother the neighbors.  While waiting, he could wash the dishes.  He was a multi-multitasker extraordinaire.

 

Stiles scrubbed all the silverware, gaining energy from the memory of watching Derek return the unwashed spoon to the drawer. 

 

Who did that?  In front of company, at least.  Honestly!

 

Then he stared at his reflection distorted on one of the spoons and before he could think better of it, he licked the bowl of it and shoved it into the drawer.  Ah, revenge.

 

It tasted so, so sweet.  Like the taste of metal and success.

 

x.x.x.x.x.

 

But Stiles did not spend his time on campus searching for places to live.  He spent his time researching the buildings he had passed on 42nd Street until he could name them confidently and know whether his architectural guesses were right. 

 

He had priorities, ok?

 

Also, he took a look at the apartments available, and the pictures of the ones he could afford that didn’t have roommates were really, really, really kind of horrible.  He didn’t want to face it yet.  He’d had a terrible first twenty-four hours, and he felt a little like Jack Bauer by the end of it, like he had survived explosions and plotful machinations of evil villains a lot more complex than a simple renting scam.  Even a few days later Stiles just wanted to relax and look at cool buildings, which was why he found himself heading back downtown a few hours later and minimal effort into his job search.

 

Manhattan was a vast and crowded place, full of noise and people and smells and new sights that had Stiles feeling overwhelmed, but in an exciting way that had him eager to learn it all, a tingle of excitement from the crown of his head to the tip of his toes as he found a grocery store close to Derek’s apartment, and a little bagel place around the corner that looked promising, and pizza! There were a ton of pizza places to try.

 

And also restaurants.  So many restaurants, and if there was one thing Stiles knew about NYC from various television shows, it was that everybody ate out, so he was totally anticipating all the research he could do so he could find a favourite place of his own, one that came with decent prices, awesome food, and three to four friends.

 

He was just reaching Derek’s building when he realized that all those plans were predicated on the idea of staying in this neighborhood, specifically with Derek.  He was getting enthusiastic about something he’d have to give up within the week.

 

Stiles was an idiot and complacency was not his friend.

 

By Friday, though it seemed infinitely longer than that when measured in couch-time, Stiles found an apartment.

 

Things it had going for it: It was decently close to Columbia.  It was a studio apartment, so no roommate. It was on a month-by-month basis so he wasn’t trapped in a year-long lease, which would come in handy if and when he returned home for the summer term.

 

Things it did not have going for it:  Everything else.

 

Basically, it was a small room with a small bathroom, and he’d never have to worry about cooking supper because there was no kitchen with the exception of an element next to the sink and on top of a mini fridge. The apartment would be like getting back to dorm life, complete with very questionable characters standing in the hallway looking lost and drugged.

 

Stiles had taken one look at it, his back still twinging from walking up three flights of stairs, and said he’d take it, because Derek had emerged from his bedroom around 2 AM and stood in front of the kitchen for about five minutes before wandering over to the couch and sitting on him.  It had been an unpleasant surprise for both of them.

 

The worst thing?  Derek had still been wearing his suit.

 

“A suit, really?” Stiles questioned, voice thick with exhaustion. “Do you sleep in that thing?”

 

“No,” Derek answered curtly.  “Sorry.” Pause.  “That I sat on you.”  Then he retreated back into his bedroom.

 

And also because his classes were starting in a few days and he really, seriously, needed his own place.

  
x.x.x.x.x.

 

The day before there had been an apple missing from the bag Stiles had bought for a light snack, buying one for every day of the week.  Stiles had eyed the bag suspiciously, wondering if he had miscounted.  Today one of his granola bars was missing, which was kind of shocking because Stiles had been under the impression that Derek was on an all-liquid diet supplemented by the occasional fruit.

 

He was going to call Derek on it, he really was, but the man got home late again and spent about three minutes staring forlornly into his fridge because the only thing in there that was actually his was a tube of mustard, the dregs of a bottle of ketchup, and two wrapped Kraft cheese slices.

 

If he had a hamburger and bread, Derek would have a full meal right there.  But he didn’t.

 

Other possible meals from that combination of food included: really crappy and cheap macaroni and cheese if Derek had macaroni, which was actually possible because there were a few dried goods in the cupboards that looked newer than 2003.

 

Stiles tried not to laugh.

 

Seriously, Derek’s relationship with his fridge was strange and complicated.  It was like he kept expecting there to be actual food in it, and each time he checked he was a little more disappointed.  Did he expect Stiles to buy him food or something?  Because that was not happening!  It would be a really cold day in hell before Stiles did that.

 

But Derek was just so pathetic staring at one of his cheese singles like he was debating whether he could throw it in his blender or not.

 

And also, Stiles couldn’t help but wonder if Derek was seconds away from considering Stiles a meal. 

 

“I have a package of frozen chicken burgers in the freezer if you want one,” Stiles offered from Michelle.

 

Stiles wasn’t entirely sure what he expected, maybe Derek sneering at him for his food choices at minimum, possibly an entire lecture on health foods and the benefits of protein shakes.  What he wasn’t expecting was for Derek to have the freezer door opened and the packaging on the chicken burgers ripped to shreds with two of them shoved in the microwave before he could really even contemplate the fact that Derek was willingly eating solids.

 

“You can have some bread, too. Sorry I don’t have buns,” Stiles told him, mouth open with fascination as Derek opened the last two of his cheese slices and took the ketchup out of the fridge in preparation as his burgers cooked (and Stiles wasn’t even sure they were the kind that could be microwaved).  He looked relieved at the idea of toast, and gave Stiles an appreciative nod as he shoved four slices of bread into his toaster.

 

Stiles would bitch at him for using so much, but Derek looked seriously happy at the idea of actually eating.  Oh god, what if it was a money thing?  What if the reason Derek only had 2 slices of cheese and enough ketchup to fill a fast food packet was because he didn’t have the funds to buy more?

 

Talk about making Stiles feel guilty without ever saying a word, and Stiles was not the type to feel guilty.

 

And that just left Derek with mustard.

 

But Stiles was not Derek’s maid, no matter how badly he felt about the fact that Derek literally had nothing to eat.  Let him eat mustard for breakfast, for all that Stiles cared.  That would actually be an entertaining thing to watch him throw in a blender at 6:30 AM.

  
He was distracted by Derek’s eating habits long enough that when the phone rang, in a ringtone that wasn’t his own, he actually jumped and patted his pockets for his phone.  Derek retrieved his first, scowling at the display like he was seriously considering whether or not to ignore it.  “Hi mom,” he finally said, making his decision.

 

Wrong decision.  Way wrong decision.  Like, mustard and cheese slices protein shakes bad decision, and here Stiles thought that Derek was on a roll in making good choices.

 “Yeah mom, he’s doing fine,” Derek said, holding his phone between his ear and his shoulder as he turned to stare at Stiles, making an exaggerated face that made him seem human for once.  “I’ll help him find something.  I promised.  Somewhere safe.” Pause.  “I know, I thought it was nice to have someone to talk to too, but it will be more convenient for both of us this way.” Pause. “Yeah, he’s ok,” Derek rolled his eyes in Stiles’ direction.  “No, I haven’t seen him do stupid things that could get him mugged, I think he’ll be fine.  His dad’s the Sheriff, remember?” Pause.  “Yeah, I know he got conned, but it looks like it made him more wary.  Not everybody from a small town goes around talking to absolute strangers _like you do_.” Pause.  “Yes, I’ve been eating well.  Yes, vegetables, absolutely.  I haven’t even used my blender for weeks. No! I’m not lying, ok... I admit, I did have a fruit smoothie the other day.” Pause.  “Mooooom, I have my own washing machine, of course I’m doing laundry.”

 

Stiles mentally referred to the conversation as Derek’s wobbling tower of lies.

 

x.x.x.x.

 

It was weird, that was all Stiles was saying.  There was no way, _No Way_ Derek could have snuck by him in the middle of the night.  Stiles was an unwilling sentry considering how terribly he was sleeping, and the slightest sound made him lose his tenuous connection with sleep.  The only explanation was that Derek had returned home in the fifteen minutes Stiles was out getting diner food at Scotty’s Diner so he could tell Scott about it.

 

And honestly?  Scott’s breakfasts were better, and that was saying something, but the food had been edible and it was supposedly open 24 hours, so if he ever needed to study in a place with a constant stream of mediocre coffee, he could probably do worse.

 

Like Derek’s apartment, because at least the bench seats at the diner had padding.

 

So yes, it was weird that Derek had stayed out all night.

 

Weird, or impressive that at least someone was getting laid.  The weird part was that Derek had come out of his bedroom and Stiles hadn’t even realized he returned home.

 

Derek didn’t seem to have ninja skills, did that mean that Stiles had actually slept soundly enough not to notice Derek doing the Walk of I-Just-Had-Sex-Bake-Me-A-Cake-Because-I’m-Starved-From-All-The-Sex-And-Also-Not-Eating-Anything-But-Mustard-For-Two-Days right by him?

 

Stiles’ back cracked as he stretched, sitting up with the pleasure of knowing his days in Azkaban were numbered.  “Sorry, darling,” Stiles said to the couch.  “I think we should see other people.  I know that I’m not the ass you want to be supporting regularly, and you’re certainly not the one I want to be sleeping with.”

 

“Are you talking to the couch?”

 

“I got an apartment!” Stiles blurted out as cover as Derek took actual food out of his section of the fridge.  It had been bad enough that Stiles had missed Derek arriving home at all, but somehow food had materialized and Stiles was sure he wouldn’t have missed something as momentous as that. What was going on?

 

Derek whipped his head around and stared at Stiles.  “Did you? A real apartment?”

 

“Yeah, I saw it in person and everything.  It’s really terrible.  The kitchen is one of those fridge, stove, sink combos.  It’s super sick.”

 

And by sick he meant he’d probably get tetnus and die if he used it.

 

“I can move in tomorrow.  Think you can drive me there?”

 

“Tomorrow is…?” Derek questioned vaguely, looking at his watch.

 

“Sunday.”

 

“Really?” Derek questioned, looking down at his suit.  “I have to go in anyway,” he decided, eyebrows drawn to each other like the polar opposites of magnets.  It was a strong attraction, that was sure.  “I can probably take an hour or so off in the afternoon.”

 

Derek said this uncertainly, as though going in to work on a Sunday wasn’t entirely voluntary – and maybe it wasn’t, because he hadn’t ever told Stiles what he did for a living.  Stiles had just assumed a 9-5 job with Saturday and Sundays off, but Derek was totally out of bed at 8 AM on a Saturday, which was actually a good hour later than usual so it did give credence to the idea that Derek was more relaxed over the weekend, but… “I can take a taxi?”

 

What the hell did Derek do for a living?

 

“I’ll be here around one,” Derek promised, digging into the remnants of a Chinese food takeout box with an actual pair of chopsticks.  “I’ll have to pick the car up from parking downtown.”

 

“Yeah?” Stiles perked up. He wouldn’t have to fit all his stuff in a taxi! Derek was actually an ok dude.

 

Or really wanted to get rid of him.

 

Either way he seemed to have really dexterous fingers, which was unsurprisingly something Stiles looked for in a man.

 

Thank god Stiles was moving out, or he might try to crawl into bed with Derek in return for Derek sitting on him in the middle of the night.

 

“It’s close to the school,” Stiles hedged.  “Kind of close to Harlem, but it probably won’t be a problem.  Just don’t tell your mom because then she’ll tell my dad and I’m telling him it’s around Morningside Heights.  Which is… potentially not a lie, depending on how you define neighbourhoods where you draw the line between truth and falsehood.”

 

“How close to Harlem is it?” Derek questioned.

 

“Uhm… like 2 or 3 or 5 blocks in?  But it should be fine!  It’s closer to Central Park than it is to the really dangerous neighborhoods.  I think. I probably won’t get shot on my way to school or get mugged for my wallet and shoes.  _Probably_.”

 

Derek looked unconvinced.

 

“It’ll be fine!” Stiles dismissed with a laugh.  “I’m the son of the Sheriff.  I have a keen eye for this stuff.”

 

x.x.x.x.

 

It was not fine.

 

Derek pulled up at the curb with an expression mixed with distaste and disapproval.  Stiles seconded that.  When he had walked to the apartment building, the nearness of the sidewalk had hidden a lot of the more sketchier qualities that were only visible from far away.

 

Awesome.  He was totally pumped about having his first apartment all on his own in gang territory.

 

“It’s not gang territory,” Derek answered through gritted teeth.

 

“Yeah?” Stiles answered hopefully.

 

“I don’t know, I rarely come up this way.  There’s no real need for me to go further uptown than my neighbourhood.”

 

“You’re the most helpful person in the world,” Stiles sneered.

 

Derek sneered back.  “Get out, I’m not leaving my car alone in this neighbourhood.”

 

“It’s a nice enough neighbourhood,” Stiles claimed, pointing down the street.  “Look, the youth like to hang out on the corners.  Would they do that if it was dangerous?”

 

The incredulous look was back, as though Derek wasn’t entirely sure if Stiles was just that naïve or was pulling his leg.

 

“They’re 10 year old girls!” Stiles pointed out indignantly.  “Well I’m sorry that school was in while I saw the place, but I never took you as they type to be scared of children.”

 

“My fear of children is not the point here,” Derek said through gritted teeth.  “Haven’t you ever watched The Wire?”

 

“Oh of course you’ve seen The Wire,” Stiles sniped back.  “You seem the type.”

 

“What does that mean?”

 

“The world is divided into two categories: people who hate TV but love The Wire and people who love TV and think The Wire is boring as fuck.”

 

“I enjoy television AND I like The Wire,” Derek answered huffily, like Stiles had really insulted his entire personality with that one. 

 

And really, Stiles had said a lot of vaguely insulting things.

 

“You don’t even have cable or satellite or Netflix!”

 

“I have all of those!”

 

“You do not, or I would have been spending my time marathoning Sex and the City to prepare for single life in New York.”

 

“You’d do better watching Law and Order: Special Victims Unit based on your ability to apartment hunt.”

 

“Well excuse me, we all can’t earn enough money to afford nice apartments and install porn showers in them.  Some of us take what we can get.”

 

“I hope that’s not your outlook on being single as well, bec—“ Derek cut off mid-sentence as a sound echoed down the block and they both jumped.

 

Realistically it was probably a car backfiring about a block away, the sound reverberating through the air, all the louder for what they both assumed it was.

 

“I’m gonna get shot,” Stiles decided mournfully, hands braced on the dash and seat-rest in a readied-position, the car equivalent to the airplane crash safety position.  He was already resigned to his fate.  There was no getting around it in his mind anymore.  He’d been impulsive with his need to get out of Derek’s apartment and had taken the first place he could afford, and now he would have to live in his gross apartment in a terrifying neighbourhood and get tetnus from his sinkfridgestove.  “Why didn’t you bring your block of knives with you? It’s suitably intimidating.”

 

Stiles was really mourning Derek’s serial killer brow right now, because if anything Derek looked concerned, all wide-eyed with worry, and that did not bode well at all.  How badly did he mess up that even the guy with the crazed-killer eyebrows was apprehensive?

 

“You’re not going to get shot,” Derek told him, but it sounded like he was just saying that to be contrary because he didn’t look convinced at all.  “Today,” he amended.  “Now are you going to get out or what?”

 

“Yeah, I just…” Stiles hedged because his heart was still beating really fast.

 

“Hey!” Someone knocked on Stiles’ passenger side window, palm flat against the glass. 

 

“Holy shit!” Stiles exclaimed, actually jumping this time so that his head rammed back against the roof of the car.

 

Derek reared forward, his reflexes better than Stiles’ as he took his car out of park.  Derek’s foot automatically pressed down on gas and he was peeling away from the curb before Stiles even had time to relax.

 

“Did I see a gun?” Stiles questioned.  “Derek, was that a gun?”

 

Derek was staring intently through the glass of his windshield.

 

“It probably wasn’t, right?” Stiles laughed nervously, turning back to look behind them with his head ducked down as though Derek’s seats could protect him from a bullet.  Maybe they could.  Maybe Derek was secretly a secret agent and this car was bullet proof.  Or maybe Stiles was about to be shot.  “I think it was a dog leash.  Turn around, it’s probably fine.  I need to take possession of my apartment.”

 

“You’re possessed! I’m not going back there,” Derek answered stubbornly.  “You’re on your own.  I’ll drop you off at a cab stand.”

 

“Are you scared?” Stiles tried goading, but the effect was dampened by the fact that he’d almost pissed himself and his heart was still beating rapidly.  “Worst case, he had a gun.  Second worst case he thought we were drug dealers.  This is totally a drug dealer’s car.  Why would you bring this car into the ghetto?”

 

“It’s not the ghetto!” Derek hissed.  “But I’m still not going back there.”

 

“We almost just got carjacked,” Stiles agreed.

 

“We didn’t almost get carjacked,” Derek answered, and Stiles was seeing a trend.  Derek liked hearing the lies out loud to comfort himself.  That was extremely good to know.  “And this is not the ghetto we are now leaving.”

 

“Is your couch still free?” Stiles questioned with a sigh.  “Because I’d rather face chronic back pain than that guy with the dog leash again.  Talk about embarrassing.”

 

Derek gave him the bitchiest of all bitch faces, but he didn’t say anything as Stiles dragged his suitcases back into his apartment, so Stiles thought that was kind of implicit permission to crash on the couch for another week.

 

He was taking it that way, anyway.

 

x.x.x.x.

 

“Stiles?” Derek questioned, eyes cutting across the room.  “I drove him today.”

 

“Is that your mom?” Stiles mouthed, and then shook his head, gesturing wildly for Derek not to say anything with sharp slashing motions across his throat.

 

Derek frowned at him, but seemed to get the hint.

 

“Yeah, it’s not bad.  Good for a student.  A little cramped, but what isn’t in New York?” Pause.  “Yeah, of course I kept an eye out to make sure it was in a good neighborhood.  I told you I would, didn’t I?  He’ll be fine, he’s settling in now.” Pause.  “I wouldn’t have been able to do it over the next two weeks.”  Pause.  “It’s going fine.  Just another twelve days or so and I won’t have to worry about it anymore.  I’m taking breaks this time and sleeping well, so you don’t have to worry.”  Pause.  “I know it’s your job, and I love you too.”

 

“Do you know what you just did?” Stiles asked once Derek put down the phone.

 

“Yeah,” Derek look uncomfortable.  “I lied to my mom.”

 

“You lied to your mom and created a lie we’ll have to maintain,” Stiles shrugged.  “When my dad calls in five minutes, I’ll lie to him to.  Neither of them can know about this.”  He gestured widely.  “They can’t know!”

 

“She just wanted to see if you were settled.  I don’t like lying to my mom,” Derek repeated in a disgruntled tone.

 

“What are you talking about?  You do it all the time,” Stiles pointed out, which wasn’t the proper thing to say apparently, the way Derek was scowling at him.  “Plus, you were the one who chose how to lie about it.  I just motioned for you not to mention the shooting incident, mostly so she’d never know how scared you are of New York City.”

 

“I’m not scared of New York City!” Derek exclaimed incredulously.  “I live here!  I’ve lived here for almost seven years.”

 

“Fine,” Stiles held his hands up in a show of capitulation.  “But that doesn’t negate the fact you totally chickened out.  You should have just pointed your eyebrows at the guy.  They are _a weapon_.”

 

“I chickened out?  You’re the one no longer living in your decent apartment.”

 

“It was a shit hole and you know it. I already called in and told them I wasn’t staying another month, so stop changing the subject.”

 

“Stop projecting your fears on to me.  You’re the one in a new city on a coast you don’t know with none of your support group here.  San Francisco hardly counts as moving away from home, so you thought you’d be prepared for the culture shock because New York City isn’t even in another country, am I right?  Well, New York City is a district of its own, you can’t compare it to San Francisco or Los Angeles and you certainly can’t compare it to Beacon Hills or Redding.  _I know_.”

 

That was possibly the most he’d heard Derek say at once, with the exception of his house rules, and Stiles couldn’t help but feel like it was a lecture of some sort (just like the house rules).  Stiles crossed his arms over his chest, echoing Derek’s extreme bitchy look of being unimpressed.

 

Derek continued on as though Stiles wasn’t nonverbally articulating how unmoved he was by Derek’s logic.  “Obviously you can’t be trusted to find a place on your own and I can’t dedicate time to helping you for another two weeks, so it looks like you’ll just have to stay here until then.”

 

Aww yes.  Stiles had a place to live for two weeks that wasn’t his sketchy apartment!  “Look, you don’t want your mom to know you just kind of left me on my own out here when you promised you’d take me under the shield of your wing like a damaged baby bird or whatever, and I don’t want my dad to know that things went sideways again, so we just won’t tell them.  It can’t take me that long to find another place, just the two weeks, right?  So we can manage for two weeks and then it won’t be a lie.”

 

“Right,” Derek agreed, entirely unconvinced.

 

“See how it’s done,” Stiles said meaningfully as his phone rang.  “Hey dad!  Speak of the devil, I was just thinking about calling you.  My new place!  I’m still moving in, and I need to find a bed, but I think you’d like it.  So talking about timing, I totally know this isn’t coincidental… is Mrs. Hale in your pocket or something?  Is she a paid informant?”

 

“How did you know I spoke to Mrs. Hale?” his dad asked.

 

“Because I know!  You only call when you’re fishing for information, and Derek and his mother seem to have this kind of symbiotic relationship where the telephone line is a metaphor for the umbilical cord.”

 

Derek gave him a face that was so unpleased that Stiles almost burst out laughing over the phone.

 

Heh, it turned out Derek was unintentionally funny.  Who knew the guy with the douche sunglasses Stiles had met that first day was capable of it.

 

Stiles had assumed he was capable of other things, but being funny? No, that hadn’t made the list, nor did there seem to be any hints of it over the numerous times Derek stared mournfully into his fridge, which was pathetic but not overly hilarious.

 

“My only child just moved into his first apartment that I wasn’t able to vet first,” his dad reminded him, drawing Stiles back into the conversation.  He had to bodily turn away from Derek to do so.  “I am a concerned parent and law enforcement officer.  I want to hear things from you.”

 

“Do you really want me to call you three times a day?  I’ll send you pictures,” Stiles promised.  “Did you read that article I sent you linking heart disease to microwavable meals?  Do you know what that means for Hungry Man meals?”

 

“I’m a hungry man, kid.”

 

‘See how it’s done,’ Stiles mouthed at Derek.  Derek looked unimpressed, but Stiles knew there had to be a part of him basking in the glory of Stiles’ deflection skills.

 

x.x.x.x.

 

Derek left to go back to work or whatever it was he did in his spare time in a business suit and however that did or did not relate to the two weeks he spoke about, and Stiles realized he hadn’t spoken to Scott for _hours_.  He wondered if he was able to really joke about Derek’s relationship with his mother when Stiles felt the need to tell Scott what he ate for lunch.

 

“Oh my god!” Scott said when Stiles called and told him after Derek went back to work in the middle of the afternoon _on a Sunday_ (Stiles never wanted to be a full-fledged responsible adult if that’s what it meant).  “Oh my god, Stiles.  Oh my god,” he laughed, wheezing over the phone line.  “Con los terroristas.”

 

“Stop quoting that song, Scott. There are like 2 lines in it and every time I mention my apartment hunt, you quote it at me.  I can say it in Spanish if you need me to: ¡Alto!”  Then Stiles started to laugh.  “You should have seen Derek book it when he thought the guy had a gun. It was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.  What a wuss.”

 

“You’re the one not going back,” Scott reminded him.

 

“What are you implying?  That I wouldn’t have eventually gotten out of the car if Derek hadn’t taken off with me still in it?”

 

“I’m implying that you can’t really mock him for being scared.”

 

Oh, but Stiles could, and would.

 

“I thought everything was going well!” Stiles whined over the phone.  “My luck was holding strong, and ok so the first apartment thing was a blip, but now it looks like good fortune has run out.  Is this karma?  Is that how it works?  I don’t know, Scott! I don’t know if I’m a karmliever, but good things were happening to me before I moved to New York and it was like things were finally looking up after high school and the start of undergrad, so I thought maybe the trend would last through my time here.  I mean, me getting my education paid for by a company that wants to hire me?  It’s like some kind of unbelievable television trope used as a catalyst to the central plot that everyone just ignores because without it there would be no show.”

 

“We can’t all have that kind of luck, Stiles, not all the time” Scott reminded him.  “I had to turn down my acceptance to the school I wanted to go to because I couldn’t afford it.  And you know what? It’s easy to say that that it was unlucky, but I’m working full time at a job I don’t hate and gives me great experience and insight into what being a doctor is, and I’m saving up my money so I can try again next year or the year after.  I’m making it work.  I think half of it is about your outlook at life.”

 

“You’re reading The Secret again, aren’t you?”

 

“ _It’s the only book in the break room_!” Scott said in a frustrated tone.  “All the rest disappear, but The Secret remains.”

 

“So bring another book,” Stiles snapped back with a grin on his face.  “So get this,” Stiles said idly, curling up on the chair as he spoke to Scott.  “Derek was so scared in that part of town that he legit sped away from some guy with a dog leash thinking someone was trying to jack his car.  The only thing that would have made it worse was if he’d run over the dog.”  Then Stiles launched into the full epic tale of Derek’s douchebaggery, ending it with: “And I still don’t know what he’s doing for the next two weeks! I snooped through his things and everything, and I have no idea what’s so important.  It shouldn’t be this difficult – I just don’t know what the proper search parameters are for finding out.  What happens in two weeks!  Is he getting an operation?  Is he under investigation for some crime where the statute of limitation ends in 2 weeks?  Is his job under review?  Is it possible he’s going to lose it and then we’ll both be homeless?  Do you think I’d be obligated to put him up on my crappy futon in whatever roach motel I’m able to afford as a student?”

 

“Probably not…” Scott answered uncertainly.

 

“To… which…?” Sometimes Stiles needed to slow down talking when he approached levels of ranting.  He’d work on that.

 

“All of it?  I doubt Derek would want to sleep on your fut…”

 

“Oh my god, I need to buy the most uncomfortable futon known to man so if Derek ever does need to sleep on it, it will be retribution for all the nights I have to sleep on Michelle!  Do you realize the opportunity I have here?  And his face looks like it’s carved in bedrock now!  Just imagine…”

 

“I can’t!  You really need to take a picture of Derek and send it to me,” Scott laughed.  “Because I really don’t remember him at all and it’s driving me nuts that I can’t place him.  I thought I knew the Hales.”

 

“I just remember Laura and what’s her face…”

 

“Cora.”

 

“The one you used to blush over in high school.”

 

“Cora.”

 

“And write odes to her cute freckles.  I remember her named rhymed with her sister’s because I guess that’s a thing that happens in larger families, so any potential siblings of mine were lucky I’m an only child.  What was it?  Aurora?  Dora?”

 

“Cora, and you’re the worst.  You know she turned me down when I asked her to Winter Formal.  It broke my heart.  I still can’t look at tinsel without wanting to simultaneously throw up and cry.”

 

“But think about it!” Stiles teased.  “We always thought it would be our parents getting together, but here is another whole new way we could be brothers!  You just manage to convince whatshername… Euphora to reconsider her really brutal shut down and I need to convince Derek that maybe he’s into guys, and then we can be practically blood brothers, Scott.  Practically related because of who we’re boning.  Just make a move on Fedora and then you and Derek can be brothers, and I’ll work on it at my end and it will be this nice little love square that is admittedly half platonic sibling love but still!”

 

“You are officially the worst person I know,” Scott informed him. 

 

Stiles knew that was Scott’s way of saying he loved him.

 

“Yeeeah,” Stiles grinned.  “But you’re thinking about that rather than the fact I’m lying to my dad and he thinks I have my own place, aren’t you?”

 

“I was! You know I can’t lie straight to your dad’s face without you there.  He has like homing beacon eyes that zone right in on lies.  Don’t you remember what happened when he asked where you were that night with the bonfire?  I told him you were lying drunk under a bench in the park!  I opened my mouth to lie and _I told him the truth!_ He sent a cruiser after you and everything.  I can’t lie to your dad!”

 

“You’ll have to avoid him, then, because there is no way he can know about the fact I almost got shot today.”

 

“You said it was a dog leash.”

 

“Yeah, about that….”


	4. Life with Derek: Under where?  Underwear.

Derek Hale slept naked.

 

Stiles was aware of this because Derek Hale had obviously forgotten that Stiles was sleeping in his living room (again) and he was standing in front of the fridge.  Naked. Stiles hadn’t really seen _anything_ as Derek emerged from his bedroom, mostly because it was two in the morning and Stiles hadn’t even woken up when the bedroom door opened, but Derek was now standing in front of the fridge with a frown on his face.  The light was illuminating his bare torso, or at least glinting a golden halo around one of Derek’s arms and down his side to the slope of his ass, and Derek had turned his head to look at the condiments in the fridge door, appraising his choices.

 

Mustard.  Basically still mustard.

 

That was all Stiles could see.  He didn’t want to sit up and let Derek know that he was caught wandering naked around his own apartment.  That could be awkward.  But, on the other hand, Stiles was a little curious to find out what Derek looked like naked.  Stiles was kind of curious to find out what Derek looked like wearing anything but a suit.

 

(…like maybe his birthday suit)

 

From what he could see, Derek’s arm and flank looked decently toned.  Maybe.

 

Ok, Stiles couldn’t see anything.

 

And it was such a shame.

 

Seriously, what was with Derek Hale and his fridge, anyway?  He was tempted to ask, but Derek grabbed an apple from it and Stiles had a startling realization that Derek wasn’t weirdly obsessed with the fridge, Derek was stealing his food in the middle of the night.

 

Derek was such an asshole.

 

And also not even the littlest bit naked.  He wasn’t wearing a shirt, but as he walked back into his bedroom in the dark, not even noticing the glare Stiles was giving him, his pants made obvious swish noises against his legs.  Stiles hated him a little in that moment for robbing him of a peek.

 

Apples for apples.

 

Seemed fair, right?

 

x.x.x.x.

 

It wasn’t that Stiles was giving in to the idea of being Derek’s maid or whatever, it was just that he was really starting to learn about real estate and apartments in New York City.  For instance, a renter was expected to make 40 times a year what one month’s rent came to.  So, if Derek’s apartment DID cost $3,000 a month, then Derek had to make about $120,000 a year just to be considered as a viable renter.  Considering Stiles made about $3,000 a year, his options were pretty limited, and by limited he meant he’d have to find some kind of sketchy subletting situation where he wasn’t even listed on the lease.

 

So no, it wasn’t like he was buttering Derek up or anything.  He just felt kind of bad that Derek worked so hard, coming home every evening looking a bit more beat down, only to have Stiles on his couch.  And as much as the couch sucked, Stiles was aware that this was the nicest place he’d get to live while living in the city, so if scrubbing a few dishes and taking out the trash meant that Derek would allow him to stay a few more days, well, it was the least he could do.

 

Right?

 

Well, in theory, at least.

 

The reality of it was that Derek didn’t notice when Stiles cleaned his coffee mug or when the floor got swept.  He didn’t notice that Stiles went out and replaced the shower gel he used when the container ran out, and he didn’t notice that somehow his clean underwear got back in his dresser drawer (Stiles drew the line at actually DOING Derek’s laundry, but he was vaguely impressed that Derek even remembered to put a load in the washing machine at all, considering that when he shoved everything back in the drawer there weren’t any socks left, and only a single pair of novelty underwear. So, you know, points for trying or whatever).

 

Stiles had two weeks to show Derek he was indispensable, and so far Derek had his head so far up his ass he hadn’t even noticed.  It was beyond frustrating, because Stiles had an ultimate goal, and that goal was to stay for a bit longer than the two weeks that was motivated primarily by his bank account.

 

“I don’t really get it,” Stiles said to Scott, staring up at the ceiling.  He was on the floor, giving his back a break from Michelle.  “The guy is like one of the most absentminded people I’ve ever met.  I seriously don’t know how he’s still alive.  I don’t know how he’s still employed.”

 

“Maybe he’s just singularly focused on his job.”

 

“Mhmm,” Stiles grunted, not really agreeing.  “I don’t think a job exists where you just forget about the rest of your life. I’m surprised he even bothers coming home at all. He left at 5 AM yesterday and returned at 11 PM. I think he’s losing weight.  I think I’m WORRIED about him, Scott.  Something is seriously wrong.  Brainstorm with me.  What could Derek do that has him so… how did you put it? Singularly focused?”

 

“I don’t know, maybe he’s a contract killer trying to take down the king of some foreign country during the five hours the man is on a layover at JFK.”

 

Stiles gasped in a scandalized manner.  “Betrayal!  We agreed we weren’t going to see the movie Jackson got an itsy bitsy part in!  What happens if we all support his movies?  People watch them, that’s what! And what happens when people watch his movies? He’ll get more roles.  There is absolutely no way I want to see Jackson’s face staring at me during the next superhero franchise.  Do you know how painful it will be to see his face on a billboard in Times Square? I’ll probably accidentally wander into traffic and get hit by a cab.  And it will be a mercy!”

 

“How did you know what I was talking about if you didn’t see it?” Scott questioned, clucking his tongue in a chiding manner.  “We all saw the movie. It was a dumb pact, because of course I was curious, dude.”

 

Stiles was silent for a moment.  “Thank God, it’s been killing me not to say anything.  He got killed by a frisbee. I haven’t seen anything so glorious since the first Sharknado movie, and the Sharknado movie didn’t have Jackson dying because of a frisbee as The Rock raced across a park.  _A frisbee_.”

 

Scott snorted.  “Poetic justice.”

 

“Why Scott McCall,” Stiles answered, tisking as though he was appalled.  “That is very close to admitting that you think Jackson is a douche who deserves to get brained by a frisbee for all the times he brained you with a lacrosse ball.”

 

“That’s…”

 

“Basketball,” Stiles continued.  “Baseball.  Dodgeball.”

 

“Well, that one is probably my fault for not dodging.”

 

“Volleyball.”

 

“I know, Stiles!  What do you want me to say?  That it felt really good to watch?”

 

“Uhm,” Stiles said.  “Yeah!  He made our lives hell in high school.  If we can’t enjoy him dying because of a frisbee then what do we have to look forward to?  Him going bald before we do?  My mom’s family is only part Irish, I’m not too sure of my chances for that happening.”

 

“Your hair is fine,” Scott dismissed.  “Stop making me feel bad for enjoying the karmic retribution.”

 

“You don’t feel bad,” Stiles pointed out.  “You’re just a lot darker than you let on.”

 

“It’s a movie!  He didn’t actually _die_.”

 

Stiles grinned.  He always enjoyed messing with Scott. That’s what besties were for.  No one trolled you better than your BFF.  “You don’t have to rationalize it, it was just a movie.”

 

“Exactly. “ Scott paused, the end of that conversation.  “ And I have no idea.  Maybe he’s a lawyer prepping a big case or something.  Derek, I mean.”

 

“It makes more sense than a hitman,” Stiles mused, immediately following Scott’s train of thought back to the original conversation.  Another thing besties were good at.  “I don’t think so, though.  It doesn’t feel like it fits.”

 

“Then what does?” Scott questioned.

 

“Dunno…” Stiles trailed off.  “Derek will have to remain a mystery.”

 

“You could just _ask_.”

 

“Perish the thought!” Stiles answered dramatically.

 

Ask?  Pffffft.

 

x.x.x.x.

 

Part of Stiles wasn’t sure if Derek just didn’t notice or if he was an ungrateful shit, but Stiles thought it was the former because even an ungrateful shit probably would have gotten flustered at the idea that Stiles had seen the one pair of underwear Derek had left in his drawer because they… were something.  Something Stiles was putting immediately out of his brain.

 

The one thing that didn’t pass Derek by was the food Stiles bought for him.

 

Derek stared in his fridge and looked surprised to see the fresh food on his shelf.

 

Right, Stiles decided, feeling he was justified in being indignant with the way Derek’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion at the full fridge, like little fridge fairies visited overnight, instead of Stiles dragging three heavy bags for a few blocks and then up all those stairs.

 

Now Derek would stop stealing his food in the middle of the night! There was nothing wrong with this plan.  It was a solid plan. 

 

More solid than Derek’s brain, anyway.

 

“What do you do for a living?” Stiles blurted out, leaning against the counter and biting down on a sandwich.  He drew the line at actually making supper for Derek, which meant he’d probably start doing that in a few days, like all the other lines he’d drawn.  “I mean, what’s your job?”

 

If anything Derek looked even more confused, like he was stymied by why there was food in his fridge and someone talking behind him, and it was all too much for his brain to process.  Swiss cheese, seriously.  Stiles had actually bought Derek some swiss cheese to represent the state of his brain.

 

“I’m an actuary,” he told Stiles, giving him an intensely unimpressed expression like Stiles was the one who was forgetting everything and gave off the appearance that a dementor was feeding off his soul every night.  It wasn’t like he’d told Stiles a ton of times what he did for a living and then Stiles ignored him.  Stiles was not Derek Hale.

 

“Oh my god,” Stiles exclaimed without thinking, actually taking a step away from Derek.  He couldn’t help but look at him in a new light.

 

Most boring, least sexy job ever.

 

x.x.x.x.

 

“He’s an actuary,” Stiles explained to Scott during their next scheduled Skype time.

 

“Huh,” Scott said.  “Maybe he just has some weird memory problem.  Or maybe he’s on drugs.  Did you find anything in his underwear drawer?”

 

Yeah, but Stiles wasn’t going to mention _those_ to Scott. He could barely manage to think of them himself. “Hey!” he answered indignantly.  “What makes you think I’ve been through his underwear drawer?”

 

Scott rolled his eyes at him, and Stiles scowled in the direction of his webcam in response.  “Please,” Scott answered.  “I’ve known you since second grade.  You used to go through Mrs. Brightman’s desk to find out what new stickers she bought before a test.  And that was mild compared to some of the other nosy things you’ve done throughout the years.  Of course you looked through Derek’s underwear drawer.”

 

Stiles couldn’t argue with that.  “Unless his drug of choice is regular strength Aspirin and generic brand vitamins you can get at any drug store, I don’t think that’s it,” Stiles finally admitted.  “He doesn’t even have any weed.”

 

“He’s a hardened New Yorker.  He’s much too jaded for that.  I worry about you – just say no to that East Coast shit!”

 

“Haha.  Shut up, Scott.”

 

Scott just shrugged a shoulder and grinned.  “So how’s your love affair with the Chrysler Building?”

 

And that set Stiles off on a whole other topic.  A topic of steel and brick.  Scott really did understand his priorities.

 

x.x.x.x.

 

Stiles was trying to sleep on the damned couch, but Michelle was giving him a hard time, one particular coil digging right into his hip and it felt like a corkscrew was burrowing into his bone.

 

It hit him that this was the second time in his life that he found himself attracted to someone who was stupidly attractive on the outside but a completely and utter math enthusiast on the inside. 

 

That was weird, right?

 

Did he have a type? A type that wasn’t just Lydia Martin?  Was his type _numbers_? 

 

Oh no, that was terrible news.  The next thing he knew, he’d probably be popping boners for the lady who read out lottery numbers.  And really, that explained why he thought Charlie Eppes was hotter than his brother.

 

Stiles rolled over again, the couch creaking beneath his weight, and he CURSED Derek.  If Stiles knew magic, he would literally curse Derek, one of the really bad ones that made his dick fall off or something, or if he really wanted justice maybe he’d curse Derek so every bed Derek ever tried to sleep in would feel as uncomfortable as his couch.

 

Stiles was just a little vindictive, ok?

 

He rolled over again, looking up as the bedroom door opened.  He watched as Derek shuffled his way out of his bedroom, ignoring the fridge in lieu of pouring the remains of day(s) old-coffee from his old coffee machine into a mug.  He didn’t bother to microwave it or anything, just took a drink of it.  Stiles couldn’t see Derek’s expression in the dark, but he imagined it couldn’t be pleasant.

 

Derek wandered into the living room, and for a second Stiles thought for sure that Derek was going to say something to him, possibly chide him for not cleaning out the coffee pot in daaaays, but Derek surprised him and didn’t say a word as he sat right on top of Stiles.

 

“What the hell?” Stiles yelped, bolting up and dragging his legs out from underneath the mass of Asshole with a few very violent flails.

 

Kicks.  Kicks sounded better and more controlled.  Stiles kicked his way out from beneath Derek.

 

Cold coffee rained down over both of them as Derek jumped to his feet, jerking visibly in surprise.

 

“I…” Derek started, and then frowned and stalked back into his bedroom.  He was still wearing his business suit, and it was all rumpled like he’d been sleeping in it, but it was there so Stiles couldn’t even appreciate that.  It was possibly the most frustrating thing about Derek Hale.

 

There was something really, really strange going on with that man.

 

Stiles was not doing his dry cleaning!!

 

“You’re welcome for the wake up, jackass,” Stiles yelled after him.  “Maybe I should scare you every morning.  How would you like that?” he muttered to himself.  “Maybe tomorrow I’ll jump on your bed and elbow you in the nuts.  Surprise.”

 

He couldn’t believe Derek sat on him.

 

What a jackass.

 

So when Derek put his wallet in the fridge the next night instead of on the counter next to his cell phone, Stiles didn’t say a word.  He didn’t say a word in the morning either, when Derek woke him at some unfortunate hour before 8 AM on a Saturday, and walked out the door with his shoes, his phone, but no wallet.

 

It was kind of his fault when he was watching a movie on his computer, enjoying what was probably the last free weekend he had before really getting into the term and the ton of assignments he’d have to do between now and December.  He got up for one second – **_one second_** – in search of a snack, and his phone started to ring. The only people who really called him were his dad and Scott, but Stiles had also provided his number with a few feelers he had out for an apartment, so he dove halfway across the apartment for it, stubbing his toe on Derek Hale’s damn coffee table.

 

“Stiles Stilinski speaking,” he answered politely.

 

“Do you know where my wallet is?”

 

Stiles was so tempted to hang up.

 

“I just saw it in the fridge,” Stiles attempted for innocent, which normally meant that people could see right through him, but Derek actually knew nothing about him because Derek hadn’t been paying attention to anything.  Stiles could probably get away with lying right to Derek Hale’s face without making an effort to hide his tells.

 

“Could you bring it to me?” Derek asked.

 

“I could…” Stiles hedged.  He could, but he didn’t want to.

 

“Thanks,” Derek answered begrudgingly and ended the call.

 

“You didn’t tell me where, jerkwad!” Stiles yelled into his phone.  He paused for a second, then hit the button to return the call.

 

“Stiles?” Derek questioned.

 

“YOU DIDN’T TELL ME WHERE, JERKWAD!” Stiles repeated, because nope. He was not in the mood for this.

 

x.x.x.x.

 

It turned out that Derek was in the library, sitting at a desk with his laptop in front of him, a frown on his face as he continuously pressed the down button on the keyboard.  Stiles took a moment to pause and stare at him.  When Derek had told Stiles where he was, Stiles had considered that maybe Derek was reading for recreation (or was in the middle of planning a hit on a librarian. Whatever, it made as much sense as reading for _recreation_ ).

 

He hadn’t considered that Derek might actually be using the library for the real purpose of a library, or at least a library like the _Science, Industry and Business Library_.

 

“Dude, you’re studying,” Stiles said in surprise, taking in the varied books spread across the table in front of Derek as he threw himself into the chair across from him.  As far as Stiles knew, Derek had finished his degree years ago and had been living in an adult world full of working five days a week since.  He hadn’t actually paused to consider that all of Derek’s really weird activities were easily explained by something Stiles was kind of intimately familiar with: exams.  There was a certain look to it, and Stiles should have seen it.  It was very confusing.  “Why?”

 

Derek sighed.  “Learning,” he said and rolled his eyes.  “I thought improving one’s mind was encouraged.”

 

“No, this is... it’s for a purpose.  Believe me, I recognize the signs.  You’re studying kind of frantically here.”  Derek was studying with the kind of intensity that spoke of an upcoming deadline.  It actually explained a lot.  If Stiles was working full time as well going through exams, he’d probably be just as burnt out as Derek was.

 

Not that Stiles needed to gain sympathy or understanding for Derek or anything.  This didn’t change the fact that Derek was kind of an asshole.  It just made it… a little bit more understandable in a totally relatable way.

 

Derek looked like he regretted calling Stiles in the first place, as though going hungry was better than saying three sentences to clue Stiles in on what was going on.  “Professional upgrading.  Actuaries have up to nine exams over their careers that advance them to the next pay grade.  If passed.”

 

So that was what was happening in two weeks.  Lame.  Stiles was almost disappointed to let go of all the other ideas he and Scott had brainstormed, because a high-profile hit was way more interesting than an exam.

 

Stiles rolled his eyes back at Derek.  At this rate, the two of them were going to end up straining their eye muscles, and Stiles could think of a list of better alternatives to muscles they could strain together.  “I know what professional upgrading is, you dick. I’m getting a Master’s degree.” Also, he played video games.  He understood levelling up.  “But look at what you’re doing to yourself.  Can’t you just take the next exam and spread out this intense cramming.  You already have the job.  The way I see it, they’re not going to fire you if you fail.”

 

Derek shot him a quelling look, dragging his computer towards himself as though Stiles was going to try to take it from him.

 

“Oh my god, they’d fire you?”

 

“Failing the exam would not be the official reason for it, no.”  Derek said from between his clenched teeth, as though Stiles was somehow making things worse by reminding Derek of all this stuff. 

 

Whoops.  Stiles could see that.

 

“That’s not too bad, I mean, what’s the worst that could happen?” Stiles laughed hollowly, nudging his foot against Derek’s.

 

“I get heavily encouraged to move into an ‘easier’ sector and my wage cap doesn’t move up by twenty thousand dollars.”

 

“See, that’s not...” Stiles began, and then stared at Derek.  “Twenty-thousand, really?  From what to what?”

 

“It doesn’t matter because I’m not earning in the top of the range.  Likely I’ll just get a bonus for passing.  Maybe,” Derek shrugged.  “It’s not a matter of the money.  I’m already behind in my potential.  I should have done this almost a year ago.  If I don’t actively strive forward, that kind of complacency is a warning sign that points to the risk my employers are taking by continuing my employment in a field that actively necessitates constant learning.”

 

Stiles squinted at him.  “I’m gonna buy you a cookie.”  Derek deserved a cookie, especially since Stiles now felt bad about leaving Derek’s wallet where he wouldn’t find it.

 

“I don’t want a cookie,” Derek answered almost immediately, then his eyes looked up over the top of his laptop.  “They make really good Death by Chocolate cake at the café across the street,” he finished hesitantly.

And aww shit, now Stiles didn’t just feel guilty about being such an ass, but he also felt his heart kind of swell with Derek’s unvoiced uncertainty that Stiles wouldn’t buy him what he wanted, or even that Stiles was serious about buying Derek a cookie.  The last thing he needed was to think that maybe Derek was human, and a cute human at that, beneath all his annoying traits.

 

x.x.x.x.x.

 

Derek was back to being an asshole.  His damned piece of cake cost Stiles $5.  Stiles could have bought a box of Betty Crocker for that amount and _made_ Derek a whole cake.

 

Like he was on the final descent into the role of homemaker.

 

And all at once, that seemed like the easiest and best idea he’d ever had.  He needed just a bit more time before October, because October was a new month – a new month he hadn’t dropped rent on yet.   The two weeks Derek had given him was quickly running out, obviously the countdown to exam day.  Then, he’d have to find a place.  Then, he’d have Derek’s full attention in finding a place, and Stiles wasn’t sure he could actually afford that anymore.  He’d sell his body to be able to stay with Derek for more than the agreed two weeks.

 

Physical labor!

 

He meant he’d do the heavy lifting for Derek.  Though, just between him and his bank account…

 

“I’ll make you a deal,” Stiles said, shoving the cake take-out container across the table towards Derek.  It bumped into one of the journals Derek had spread out around him.  Derek looked at it in surprise, and Stiles wasn’t sure if that was because he didn’t expect Stiles to come back, or if he had forgotten Stiles was there at all.  “Now that I know that you’re studying for an exam and not,” Stiles waved his hand in the air to convey ‘anything else’.  He could actually see that he was losing Derek’s attention to the computer in front of him. Not this time, buddy, “murdering people for money or whatever…”

 

“What?” Derek questioned, his attention dragging back to Stiles.

 

“Yeah,” Stiles encouraged.  “Eyes on me while I say this, because I want you to remember it.”

 

“Ohhhkay,” Derek answered slowly, his expression telling Stiles that he thought Stiles was very, very weird.  He pulled his cake towards him anyway, taking a huge bite of it and staring across the table like he could will Stiles to talk quickly.

 

Stiles had to pause for a second because Derek ate like someone was going to take away his food at any second, and Stiles wondered if he thought that because he ate so quickly that he forgot that he was the one who had consumed it.  He wondered if Derek thought there was a huge conspiracy out there of people stealing his food when he wasn’t looking.

 

“So, I’ll be more helpful around the apartment.  I’ll keep being helpful – I’ll make sure you have food, I’ll clean up after you sometimes so your Magic Bullet containers aren’t all caked in dried smoothie remains.  If I watch you put your wallet in the fridge again, I’ll dig it out and put it next to your cell phone… that kind of stuff.”

 

“What.” Derek’s tone was flat now as he stared at Stiles over his piece of cake.

 

Maybe Stiles had gone too far by telling Derek that last bit.

 

“You’ve kind of been a huge dick nugget,” Stiles pointed out.  “But that’s ok because I understand it now, I can sympathize.”

 

“ _I’ve been a dick nugget_?” Derek questioned incredulously.

 

“SHHHHHHHHHHHHHH,” someone hissed from behind Derek.  Stiles leaned to his left and looked over Derek’s shoulder, looking to see who it was.

 

“Yeah,” Stiles answered with his voice lowered.  “That’s what I’m saying, I’ll be better, I’ll help ease your burden at the apartment, which I could have been doing all along if you’d just taken five minutes to explain what was happening in your life.  We can make this work.”

 

Derek stared at him, shovelling a piece of cake in his mouth and angrily chewing on it.

 

Stiles still wasn’t sure if the expression on his face was normal resting-face material or if he was getting bitch-faced at.

 

“So what is the deal, here?” Derek prompted.

 

Exams couldn’t actually account for this level of forgetfulness.  Derek was screwed.  If his exam needed him to remember any of the stuff he was reading, Stiles couldn’t see how Derek had made it this far in his career.  He made sure to speak slowly this time.  “You let me stay until the end of the month, I’ll clean up after you.  I just outlined it.”

 

“You didn’t actually say that you wanted to stay.”

 

He had!... not.  Huh.  How about that?  “So we work on communication,” Stiles said with a shrug.  “People living together do that all the time.  Of course, they’re usually in a relationship and have some sort of investment in longevity and all we have is a mutual need for each other.”  Derek looked unconvinced. Unconvinced and a little horrified when Stiles said the words ‘living together’ like he wasn’t sure how his life had gotten to that point.  “You need me to make sure you’re not a mess, and I need a place to crash for a few weeks.  Just until the end of the month, so I don’t have to spend money on September rent.  Again.  A favour for a favour.”  He spread his hands open in front of him, palms up in appeal.

 

Derek looked towards the ceiling like that would somehow give him strength as he shoved the last, large, piece of cake in his mouth.  He chewed aggressively, cheeks puffed out from the volume of cake he was attempting to eat all at once.  “Fine,” Derek conceded, finally, looking like a man whose whole world was collapsing around his ears.  “Just until the end of the month.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come [follow me on tumblr](http://relenafanel.tumblr.com/) and watch me attempt to juggle my life. It's fun, if your definition of fun is very broad.


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